MEMOIRS 
 
 OF 
 
 CAPTAIN ROCK, 
 
 CELEBRATED IRISH CHIEFTAIN, 
 
 ^rtount ot W ^nce^tor^. 
 
 WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 Honoon; 
 
 Printed for 5%wn: 
 
 LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, BROWN, 
 AND GREEN. 
 
 1824. 
 
 BOSTON COLLf.GF. U^^-^ 
 
44488 
 
 T. C. Hansard, Pater-norter row Press. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 BY THE EDITOR. 
 
 In introducing to the Reader the following 
 account of Captain Rock, it may be as well that 
 I should also give him some account of myself, 
 and of the manner in which the Manuscript of 
 the Captain came into my possession. 
 
 I little thought, at one time of my life, that 
 I ever should be induced to visit Ireland. 
 Often, indeed, had T declared — so great was 
 my horror of that country — that "1 would just 
 as soon trust my pej-son among those savages 
 of the Andamans, who eat up all new-comers, 
 as among the best bred gentlemen of Kerry and 
 Tipperary." The circumstances that at length 
 led me to muster up courage enough for the 
 undertaking, were as follows : — 
 
 A 2 
 
IV 
 
 In the small town of where I re- 
 side, in the West of England, some pious per- 
 sons succeeded, the year before last, in esta- 
 blishing a Society on the model of the Home 
 Missionary in London ; — with this difference, 
 that the labours of the latter are principally 
 confined to England, while ours were chiefly, 
 if not exclusively, directed to the conversion 
 and illumination of the poor benighted Irish. 
 
 The Ladies of our Town, in particular, were 
 so impressed with the urgency, of raising that 
 unfortunate race from darkness, that every mo- 
 ment of delay in sending Missionaries among 
 them, appeared, as it were, an age lost to the 
 good cause. " What could be more imper- 
 ative," they asked, "than the claims of those 
 destitute souls upon us ? — If the County of 
 Worcester, which has hitherto been accounted 
 the Garden of England, is now (as the Report 
 of the Home Missionary assures us) become, 
 for want of preachers, ' a waste and a howling 
 wilderness,'* what must the mountains of Mac- 
 gillicuddy be ?"" 
 
 * "The Rev. Timothy East, of Birmingham, 
 states, in a published Sermon, which we earnestly 
 
In this temper of our little community, it 
 was my lot to be singled out — as knowing more 
 of Catholic countries than the rest, from having 
 passed six weeks of the preceding summer at 
 Boulogne — to undertake the honourable, but 
 appalling task of Missionary to the South of 
 Ireland. 
 
 To hint any thing of my personal fears to 
 the Ladies (all Christians as they were), was 
 more than I had the courage to venture. As a 
 brave man once said, to excuse himself for not 
 refusing some coxcomb's challenge, " I might 
 safely trust to the judgment of my own sex, 
 but how should I appear at night before the 
 maids of honour P"" 
 
 I, accordingly, prepared myself as speedily 
 as I could for the undertaking ; and read every 
 book relating to Ireland that was, at all, likely 
 to furnish me with correct notions on the subject. 
 For instance, in every thing relating to poli- 
 tical ceconomy and statistics, I consulted Sir 
 
 recommend to the attention of the Public, that the 
 County of Worcester has been termed the Garden 
 of England ; but, in a moral light, it may be regarded 
 as a waste, howling- wilderness " 
 
VI 
 
 John Carr — for accurate details of the rebellion 
 of 1798, Sir Richard Musgrave— and for 
 statesman-like views of the Catholic Question, 
 the speeches of Mr. Peel. 
 
 I was also provided by our Society with a 
 large assortment of Religious Tracts, written 
 expressly for the edification of the Irish pea- 
 santry ; particularly, a whole edition of a little 
 
 work by Miss of our Town, to the eflPect 
 
 of which upon the Whiteboys we all looked 
 forward very sanguinely. 
 
 With the details of my journey to Dublin 
 I shall not trouble the reader, nor with any ac- 
 count of the curiosities which T witnessed 
 during my short stay in that city. I visited, 
 of course, the Parliament House, which is a 
 melancholy emblem of departed greatness. In 
 the House of Lords, the only relic of its for- 
 mer pomp is a fragment of an old chandelier, 
 which they show mournfully to strangers, as 
 " the last remaining branch of the Aristocracy" 
 — and the part of this structure which was the 
 House of Commons, is, since the Union, by a 
 natural transition, converted into a Cash office. 
 
 Having received all proper instructions from 
 
Vll 
 
 the manager of the Religious Tract Establish- 
 ment in Sackviile Street (to whom our fellow- 
 labourers of the London Tavern had consigned 
 me), I left Dublin in the Limerick Coach, on 
 the 16th of July, 1823, in company with a 
 gentleman who wore green spectacles and a 
 flaxen wig, and who was, in many other respects, 
 a very extraordinary personage. 
 
 As he was one of those people, who prefer 
 monologue to dialogue, he talked through the 
 whole journey, and I listened to him with ex- 
 emplary patience. 
 
 The first place of any note, on our way, was 
 Naas — near which there is the ruin of a mag- 
 nificent house, begun, but never finished, by 
 Lord Strafford, when Lord Lieutenant of Ire- 
 land. In pointing it out to me, my friend in 
 the green spectacles said : — " It is melancholy 
 to think, that while in almost all other coun- 
 tries, we find historical names of heroes and 
 benefactors, familiarly on the lips of the com- 
 mon people, and handed down with blessings 
 from generation to generation, in Ireland, the 
 only remarkable names of the last six hundred 
 years, that have survived in the popular tra- 
 
ditions of the country, are become words of ill- 
 omen, and are remembered only to be cursed. 
 Among these favourites of hate, the haughty 
 nobleman who built that mansion, is to this day, 
 with a tenacity that does honour even to hate, 
 recorded; and, under the name of Black Tom, 
 still haunts the imagination of the peasant, as 
 one of those dark and evil beings who tormented 
 the land in former days, and with whom, in the 
 bitterness of his heart, he compares its more 
 modern tormentors. The Babylonians, we are 
 told by Herodotus, buried their dead in honey 
 — but it is in the very gall of the heart that the 
 memory of Ireland's rulers is embalmed.'" 
 
 From his use of metaphors, and abuse of the 
 Government, I should have concluded, that my 
 companion was a genuine Irishman — even if 
 the richness of his brogue had not established 
 his claim to that distinction. 
 
 In passing by the town of Kildare he 
 directed my attention, to the still existing traces 
 of that ruin and havoc, which were produced 
 by the events of the year 1798 — " one of those 
 ferocious rebellions (as he expressed himself) 
 whose frequent recurrence has rendered Ireland, 
 
even in her calmest moments, like those fair cities 
 on the side of Vesuvius, but a tenant at will 
 to the volcano on which she is placed ! 
 
 "Is not this singular ?" he added, ** is not 
 this melancholy ? That, while the progress of 
 time produces a change in all other nations, the 
 destiny of Ireland remains still the same — that 
 here we still find her, at the end of so many 
 centuries, struggling, like Ixion, on her wheel 
 of torture — never advancing, always suffering 
 — her whole existence one monotonous round 
 of agony ! While a principle of compensa- 
 tion is observable throughout the fortunes of 
 all the rest of mankind, and they, who enjoy 
 liberty, must pay for it by struggles, and they, 
 who have sunk into slavery, have, at least, the 
 consolation of tranquillity — in this unhappy 
 country it is only the evil of each system that 
 is perpetuated — eternal struggles, without one 
 glimpse 01 freedom, and an unrelaxing pressure 
 of power, without one moment of consolidation 
 or repose ! " 
 
 At Roscrea, about half-way between Dublin 
 and Limerick, I parted with this gentleman — 
 having, in the course of conversation, communi- 
 
 b 
 
cated to him the object of my journey to the 
 South, at which, I observed he smiled rather 
 significantly. 
 
 From Roscrea I turned ofF the main road, 
 to pay a visit to an old friend, the Rev. Mr. 
 
 5 whom I found comfortably situated in 
 
 his new living, with the sole drawback, it is true, 
 of being obliged to barricade his house of an 
 evening, and having little embrasures in his hall- 
 door, to fire through at unwelcome visitors. 
 
 In the neighbourhood of my friend's house 
 there are the ruins of a celebrated abbey, which 
 stand, picturesquely enough, on the banks of 
 the river, and are much resorted to by romantic 
 travellers. A wish had, more than once, oc- 
 curred to me to see the eflPect of these ruins by 
 moonlight ; but the alarming indications of the 
 gun-holes in the hall-door had prevented me 
 from entertaining any serious thoughts of such 
 an enterprize. 
 
 On the third evening of my stay, however, 
 the influence of the genial '' mountain dew," * 
 
 * Whiskey, " that has never seen the face of a 
 g-auger." 
 
XI 
 
 which my Reverend host rather bountifully 
 dispensed, so far prevailed over my fears and 
 my prudence, that I sallied forth, alone, to 
 "visit these ruins. 
 
 Of my walk I have no very clear recollection. 
 I only remember that from behind the venera- 
 ble walls, as I approached them, a confused 
 murmur arose, which startled me for a moment 
 — but all again was silent, and I cautiously pro- 
 ceeded. Just then, a dark cloud happened to 
 flit over the moon, which, added to the effects 
 of the " mountain dew,^ prevented me from 
 seeing the objects before me very distinctly. I 
 reached, however, in safety the great portal ot 
 the abbey, and passing through it to the bank 
 which overhangs the river, found myself all at 
 once, to my astonishment and horror, (the 
 moon at that moment breaking out of a cloud), 
 in the midst of some hundreds of awful-look- 
 ing persons — all arrayed in white shirts, and 
 ranged in silent order on each side to receive 
 me ! 
 
 This sight sobered me completely — I 
 was ready to sink with terror — when a voice, 
 which, I could observe, proceeded from a tall 
 
 b 9. 
 
Xll 
 
 man with a plume of white feathers in his hat,* 
 said, sternly, " Pass on," and I, of course, 
 promptly obeyed. Though there was something 
 in the voice, that seemed rather familiar to 
 my ears, it was not without exceeding horror 
 that I perceived the figure that spoke, advance 
 out of the ranks, and slowly follow me. 
 
 We had not gone many steps, when I 
 politely motioned to him to take precedence — 
 not feeling quite comfortable with such a goblin 
 after me. He, accordingly, went before, and 
 having conducted me to a spot, at some distance 
 from the band, where we could not be observed 
 by them, turned hastily round, and took me, 
 with much cordiality, by the hand. 
 
 I now perceived — what the reader must have 
 anticipated — that this personage was no other 
 than the disguised gentleman in green specta- 
 cles ; nor was it long before 1 learned, from 
 his own lips, that I then actually stood in the 
 presence of the great Captain Rock. 
 
 What passed between the Captain and me 
 
 * Hickey, a Pseudo Captain Rock who waa 
 hanged last Summer at Cork, appears to have gene* 
 rally worn feathers in his nightly expeditions. 
 
Xlll 
 
 at that interview, I do not feel myself, as yet, 
 at liberty to reveal. I can only state that it 
 was in the course of that short meeting, he 
 presented me with the Manuscript which I 
 have now the honour of submitting to the 
 Public — requesting of me, as a favour, that I 
 would read it attentively over, before I threw 
 away any further labour or thought upon the 
 mission which I had undertaken. 
 
 I lost no time, as may easily be supposed, 
 in complying with the Captain's wish. That 
 very night, before I slept, I carefully perused the 
 whole of his Manuscript ; and so strong was the 
 impression it left upon my mind, that it is the 
 Rulers, not the People of Ireland, who require 
 to be instructed and converted, that I ordered 
 horses early the next morning — returned with 
 all possible dispatch to my constituents — 
 called instantly a full meeting of the Ladies of 
 the Society, and proposed that a new mission 
 should forthwith be instituted, for the express 
 purpose of enlightening certain Dignitaries both 
 of Church and State, who, are, in every thing 
 that relates to Ireland, involved in the most 
 destitute darkness. 
 
XIV 
 
 The Ladies listened to my proposal with 
 apparent interest, but no steps have, as yet, 
 been taken on the subject — and the only re- 
 sult of my communication to them has been 
 
 a Romance by Miss , on the story of 
 
 Captain Rock, which is, at present, I under- 
 stand, in the printer's hands, and which I shall 
 not be surprised to find much more extensively 
 read, than the Captain''s own authentic Me- 
 moirs. 
 
 With respect to the style of the following 
 pages, though frequently rambling and ill- 
 constructed, it will, I have no doubt, surprise 
 the reader, as being much more civilized 
 and correct, than could be expected from 
 a hero like the Captain. The classical quo- 
 tations will also excite some surprise — but 
 this kind of learning was once very common 
 among persons of his rank in Ireland ; and 
 Smith, in his History of Kerry tells us, " that 
 classical reading extends itself, even to a fault, 
 among the lower orders of Ireland — many of 
 whom have a greater knowledge in this way, 
 than some of the better sort in other places.'* 
 
 March 31. 1824. S. E. 
 
BOOK THE FIRST 
 
 OF MY ANCESTORS. 
 
 EXITS axtiquum TF-Rii/i..— Virgil. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 A. M. 1.— A. D. 1172. 
 
 Ardiquity of the Rocks. — Reign of Ollam Fodlah, 
 Dubhlachthuy Flabhertach, S^c. — Moran's Collar. — 
 Chief Justice Bushe. — Beautiful young Lady. — 
 Revolution among the Letters of the Irish Alpha- 
 bet. — Name of Rock, whence derived. — The Irish 
 proved to be Jews. — Moral Character of the Rocks. 
 
 The Rocks are a family of great antiquity 
 in Ireland ; as old, at least, as the " ancient fa- 
 mily of the Wrongheads" in England. 
 
 That we had made some noise, even before 
 the memorable period, when Pope Adrian made 
 a present of Ireland to Henry II., there is 
 every reason to believe ; but under such wise 
 monarchs as Ollam Fodlah, Dubhlachtha, Flab- 
 hertach, Brian Boromhe, &c., whose laws, as 
 Mr. O'Halloran assures us, were models of per- 
 fection, it was difficult even for the activity 
 of the Rocks to distinguish itself. Accord- 
 ingly, for the first 1100 years of the Christian 
 
 B 2 
 
era, we hear but little or nothing of the 
 achievements of the family. 
 
 There is, indeed, one remarkable circum- 
 stance, connected with the administration of 
 justice in those times, which may account for 
 the tranquillity and good order which, we are 
 told, prevailed. The Chief Judge, on all so- 
 lemn and interesting occasions, had a kind of 
 collar placed round his neck*, which possessed 
 the wonderful power of contracting or relax- 
 ing, according to the impartiality of the sen- 
 tence pronounced by him, and which pinched 
 most inconveniently when an unjust decision 
 was uttered. The use of this collar has been 
 since discontinued, on account of the risk of 
 strangulation to which it exposed many ho- 
 nourable judges, and the collar itself was sup- 
 posed to be lost ; but, to the inexpressible joy 
 of all lovers of Irish curiosities, it was again 
 discovered a short time since, and is at present, 
 I understand, worn on all occasions by the Chief 
 
 * Called, from the name of one of their most just 
 judges, '' Moran's collar." Even to this day (says 
 O'Halloran), in litigations between people, by the 
 judgment ofMoran's collar h a most solemn appeal. 
 
Justice of Ireland, with the greatest possible 
 ease and comfort to himself. 
 
 We may imagine how dull my ancestors 
 must have found those times, when a beautiful 
 young lady, (as Dr. Warner tells us) adorned 
 with gems, and in a costly dress, having only 
 a wand in her hand, and a rich gold ring at 
 the top of it, could travel from one end of the 
 kino;dom to the other, without the least chance 
 of robbery, or even abduction, on the way. 
 So excellent was the pohce of Brian Boromhe, 
 and, still better, so moral and well-behaved 
 were his subjects ! 
 
 The only thing that seems to have been out of 
 order among the ancient Irish was their alpha- 
 bet, in which the letter A had been unaccount- 
 ably deposed from its supremacy to make way 
 for B *. Whether the Rocks had any hand in 
 this revolutionary movement among the let- 
 ters does not appear; but Hutcheson (in his 
 
 * It appears, however, from ]\Ir. O'Halloran, that 
 St. Patrick acted the part of General Monk to the al- 
 phabet, and that the restoration of A to its birthright 
 is one of the chief achievements for which we are in- 
 debted to him. 
 
6 
 
 Defence, &c.) in a great degree exculpates 
 them from such a suspicion, being of opinion 
 that the colony which first imported the alpha- 
 bet into Ireland, had come away with it from 
 Phoenicia rather in a hurry, before the point 
 of precedence between A and B was properly 
 settled. 
 
 With respect to the origin of the family 
 name, Rock, antiquarians and etymologists 
 are a good deal puzzled. An idea exists in 
 certain quarters that the letters of which it is 
 composed are merely initials, and contain a 
 prophetic announcement of the high destiny 
 that awaits, at some time or other, that cele- 
 brated gentleman, Mr. Roger O'Connor, being, 
 as they fill up the initials, the following awful 
 words, — Roger O Connor, ^ing ! 
 
 Others perceive in the name an indication 
 of the design of the Papists to establish their 
 own religion in Ireland, through the instru- 
 mentality of Captain Rock, and quote in sup- 
 port of this conjecture the sacred text — '' On 
 this Rock I will build my church ;'' while 
 others, not less learned, are persuaded that 
 the name has some connexion with the Saxum 
 
Jacobi, or Stone of Jacob, which (according 
 to Mr. Hamilton, who has written to prove 
 that the Irish are Jews) was brought from 
 Egypt to Ireland, some time before the ge- 
 neral Exod under Moses, by a portion of the 
 tribe of Joseph, called Eranites, and is now 
 under the coronation chair, in Westminster 
 Abbey*. 
 
 In support of this hypothesis (namely, that 
 the Irisli are Jews) Mr. Hamilton has pro- 
 duced some very striking proofs. Thus, he 
 shows that the fine linen, mentioned in Reve- 
 lations as worn by those personages who are to 
 gain a victory over the Beast, is an evident 
 allusion to the staple manufacture of Ireland ; 
 while the " harps" which they bear are, no less 
 evidently, intended to represent the provincial 
 arms of Leinster, which have been (as Mr. 
 O'Halloran tells us) a harp, or, strung, ar- 
 
 * '* This marble chair was lent by the monarch of 
 Ireland to. FerguS;, King of Scots, and it remained at 
 Scone until the year 1296, when it was, with other 
 regalia, carried to England by the first Edward." — 
 O'lTalloran.— It is said to make a remarkable noise 
 when any of the true descendants of Milesiussitupon it. 
 
8 
 
 ^^ent, in a field vert^ ever since the landing 
 of Heber and Heremon in Ireland, on the 
 17th day of Bel, or IVIay, in the year of the 
 world, according to the Hebrew computation, 
 2736. 
 
 The Irish being thus indisputably proved 
 to be Jews, it is to be hoped that the Irish 
 country gentlemen (now that their estates are 
 beginning to illustrate the doctrine of Evanes- 
 cent Quantities) will, when forced to take re- 
 fuge in the arms of their brethren of Israel, 
 find them considerate and compassionate, if it 
 were for nothing but old consanguinity's sake. 
 
 With respect to the moral character of my an- 
 cestors in the times of 011am Fodlah and Brian 
 Boromhe, there is no doubt that, however sup- 
 pressed or modified, it must have been pretty 
 much the same that it is at present. The Great 
 Frederick used to say, thai while the Frencli 
 fight for glory, the Spaniards for religion, and 
 the Enghsh for liberty, the Irish are the only 
 people in the world who fight^rj^m,- and, how- 
 ever true this may be of my countrymen in ge- 
 neral, there is no doubt of its perfect correctness 
 as applied to the Rock Family in particular. 
 
9 
 
 Discord is, indeed, our natural element ; like 
 that storm-loving animal, the seal, we are 
 comfortable only in a tempest; and the ob- 
 ject of the follo\ving historical and biographi- 
 cal sketch is to show how kindly the English 
 government has at all times consulted our 
 
 taste in this particular ministering to our 
 
 love of riot through every successive reign, 
 from the invasion of Henry II. down to the 
 present day, so as to leave scarcely an interval 
 during the whole six hundred years in which 
 the Captain Rock for the time might not ex- 
 claim 
 
 "Quae regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?" 
 
 or, as it has been translated by one of my 
 family : — 
 
 Through Leinster, Ulster, Connaught, Munster, 
 Rock 's the boy to make the fun stir! 
 
 b5 
 
10 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 1172—1189. 
 
 Reign of Henry II. — Queues and Mustachios. — At- 
 tention to them by the Legislature. — Fine for killing 
 a mere Irishman. — The O'Driscols expensive killing. 
 — English and Irish cursing each other. — Apostrophe 
 to Tithes. 
 
 Ix the year 1180, and for some centuries 
 after, if a man was caught in Ireland with his 
 upper hp unshaven, he was held to be no true 
 Englishman, and might be plundered without 
 ceremony, or killed at a very trifling expense. 
 
 In the year 1798, under the government 
 of Lords Camden and Castlereagh, if a man 
 was caught in Dublin who had no queue, he 
 was held, in the same maimer, to be no true 
 Englishman, and might be whipped, atZ libitum, 
 by any loyal gentleman who had one. 
 
 This shows, at least, how steadily the rulers 
 of Ireland have persevered in their ancient 
 maxims of policy, and what importance may 
 be given to mustachios and tails by a govern- 
 
11 
 
 ment that will but for six hundred years set 
 seriously about it. In the former period, of 
 course the whiskers of the Rock Family flou- 
 rished, — persecution being to whiskers more 
 nutritive than the best Macassar oil ; and, in 
 the latter period. Crops, as we all know, be- 
 came so formidable as to require not only an 
 army of twenty or thirty thousand men, but all 
 Lord Cornwallis's good sense and humanity, 
 to put them down again. 
 
 I have said that the penalty, in those times, 
 for killing a mere Irishman was but small. 
 Sometimes, however, the price Avas higher. 
 Sir John Davies, in his Historical Relations, 
 tells us of " one William, the son of Roger, 
 who, among others, was, by John Wogan, 
 Lord Justice of Ireland, fined five marks for 
 killing one O'Driscoll * ;''' — this was an un- 
 
 * In the 4th of Edward II. R. de Wayleys was tried 
 at Waterford for feloniously slaying John Mac Gilli- 
 morry. The prisoner confesses the fact, but pleads 
 that " he could not thereby commit felony, because 
 the deceased was a mere Irishman, and not of free 
 blood," &c. &c. — See the Eleventh Address of Dr. 
 Lucas on this subject. 
 
12 
 
 usually extravagant mulct ; and it would be 
 a curious research for an antiquary to inquire 
 why the O'DriscoUs were so much more ex-, 
 pensive killing than other people. 
 
 The follo\\ing verses, addressed, I under- 
 stand, to a certain personage, whose hatred of 
 an Irishman is, at least, equal to his love 
 of a guinea, come nearer, perhaps, to the 
 sum at which, in the lioneymoon of our En- 
 glish connexion, the life of a '' merus Hihernui'' 
 was valued : — 
 
 " Oh, had St thou lived when every Saxon clown 
 First stabb'd his foe, and then paid half-a-crown ; 
 With such a choice in thy well-balanced scale. 
 Say, would thy avarice or thy spite prevail?" 
 
 It was in such times, and under such laws, 
 that my pugnacious progenitors first rose into 
 repute, and began that career which, under 
 the various names of Mere Irish, Rapparees, 
 White-boys, &c., they have continued pros- 
 perously down to the present day. 
 
 It has usually been the policy of conquerors 
 and colonists to blend as much as possible 
 with the people among whom they establish 
 
13 
 
 themselves, — to share with them the advan- 
 tage of their own institutions, — to remove all 
 invidious distinctions that mi-xht recall the 
 memory of their original invasion or intrusion, 
 — in short, to sow in their new neighbourhood 
 the seeds of future shelter and ornament, in- 
 stead of perversely applying themselves to 
 the culture of poison, and sitting down, like 
 witches, with a plantation of night-shade 
 around them. 
 
 Had our English conquerors adopted this 
 ordinary policy, the respectable Family of the 
 Rocks might never have been heard of; a few 
 dozen rebellions would have been lost to the 
 page of history ; and Archbishop Magee would 
 not, perhaps, at this moment, have been throw- 
 ing six millions of people into convulsions with 
 an antithesis*. 
 
 * See the celebrated Charge of this prelate, where, 
 after asserting that the Presbyterians have a Religion 
 without a Church, his Grace balances the antithesis, by 
 adding that the Catholics have " a Church without a 
 Religion"— thus nullifying, at one touch of his archi- 
 episcopal pen, the creed of not only six sevenths of his 
 fellow-countrymen, but of the great majority of the 
 whole Christian world. Never did a figure of speech 
 produce a more hvely sensation. 
 
14 
 
 The English, it is evident, from the very 
 first, disdained to owe any thing to love or 
 good will in the " inamahile regnum^'' which 
 they established among us ; and Sir J. Davis, 
 already quoted (with a candour like that 
 of more modern functionaries, who acknow- 
 ledge the misrule of every government but 
 their own, and grant that, up to the precise 
 moment when they came into power, all was 
 wrong,) thus briefly describes the policy that 
 prevailed during the first three hundi'ed and 
 fifty years of British domination in Ireland : — 
 " It was certainly a great defect in the civil 
 policy of Ireland, that, for the space of three 
 hundred and fifty years, at least, after the 
 conquest first attempted, the English laws 
 were not communicated to its people, nor the 
 benefit or protection thereof allowed them ; 
 for, as long as they were out of the protection 
 of the laws, so as every Englishman might 
 oppress, spoil, and kill them without control, 
 how was it possible they should be otlier than 
 outlaws, and enemies to the crown of Eng- 
 land ?" 
 
 As, since the Reformation, a difference of 
 creeds has been one of the chief points in 
 
15 
 
 that game of discord at which the govern- 
 ment and the Rock Family play so inde- 
 fatigably together, it may be supposed that, 
 at the period of which I am speaking, the 
 agreement of both parties in the same belief 
 would, at least, have narrowed the arena of 
 dissension — and that discord being thus " at 
 one entrance quite shut out,"'' they would have 
 had rather more idle time on their liands than 
 at present. 
 
 But people, well inclined to differ, seldom 
 find much difficulty in managing it. In the 
 Arian controversy* it required but that inno- 
 cent diphthong o'l to set the whole Christian 
 world by the ears for ages ; and no mightier 
 monosyllables than " by" and " from" have 
 produced a schism between the Greek and 
 Latin churches for ever. 
 
 Our English polemics, however, required no 
 such important differences, to stimulate in them 
 the " odium ecclesiasticum''' against their Popish 
 brethren — but at once proceeded to burn their 
 
 * Tu fis dans une giierre et si triste et si loiigue 
 Perir tant de Chretiens, martyres ctune dipthongue. 
 
 BOILEAU. 
 
16 
 
 churches*, and murder then* priests, with as 
 right good will as if all the letters of the al- 
 phabet had been at issue between them. 
 
 Tlie effect of this aggression was such as might 
 be expected ; and the country soon exhibited the 
 extraordinary spectacle of two hostile altars 
 set up by the same Faith, at w hich believers in 
 the same Pope knelt down to curse each other, 
 with no other difference in the formula of 
 their maledictions, than that one cursed in En- 
 glish and the other in Irish. Well might a 
 philosophic member of the Rock Family ex- 
 claim, in witnessing this phenomenon, " If 
 such is the mode in which these pious persons 
 agree, what precious sport we shall have when 
 ihej differ r 
 
 * " In Ireland it had long been a custom for the 
 inhabitants to deposit provisions, and effects of greater 
 value, in the churches, where they lay secure, amidst 
 all their domestic quarrels, as in a kind of sanctuary, 
 which it was deemed the utmost impiety to violate. 
 But the English had no such superstitious scruples." 
 — Leland. 
 
 " The Irish, at length, to deprive their invaders of 
 this resource, burnt down their own churches (as 
 their annals express it), in spite to the foreigners.^' — 
 Idem. 
 
17 
 
 I had almost forgot to mention, — though of 
 tlie utmost importance in a history of our fa- 
 mily, — that to the occupation of Ireland by 
 the English we are supposed to be in a great 
 degree indebted for the first regular introduc- 
 tion of the blessed system of tithes. Among 
 the bribes, by which the prelates of Ireland 
 were induced to yield obedience to the bull of 
 Adrian, and surrender the sovereignty of their 
 country to Henry II., was that article of re- 
 formation (as it was called), passed by the 
 synod of Cashel, which enjoined the payment 
 of tithes by the laity, — a mode of taxation till 
 then, it seems, hardly known in Ireland. Mr. 
 O'Halloran, it is true, asserts the contrary ; 
 and even represents the ancient Irish to have 
 been such exemplary tithe-payers, that they 
 not only contributed a tenth of their corn and 
 cattle to the church, but threw every tenth 
 child*, as a make-weight, into the bargain, — a 
 species of small-tithe, by the bye, which, in the 
 
 * Among the pastoral customs of those happy times, 
 they used fsays Vr. Pklilner) to haptize their children 
 in butter-milk. 
 
18 
 
 present state of the population of Ireland, and 
 the enormous wealth of the Irish church, it 
 might not be unadvisable to restore to the 
 parson. 
 
 Mr. O'Halloran, however, is not always to 
 be depended upon ; and, in addition to other 
 evidence, we have lately had the expressed 
 opinion of a learned and right reverend Ro- 
 man Catholic prelate*, that the payment of 
 tithes, as a regular and compulsory due, may 
 be dated from the period to which I have re- 
 ferred it. 
 
 Honour and praise then to the Synod of 
 Cashel, for having planted among us this ad- 
 ditional apple of discord, which, unlike the 
 apples of Mr. Andrew Knight, has neither 
 changed in character, nor degenerated in fla- 
 vour ; but, by the side of the Orange t? and 
 
 * See the ^'^Vindication of the Irish Catholics/' by 
 Bishop Doyle^ — the most striking display of clerical 
 talent and courage, that has appeared among the Ca- 
 tholics since the days of O'Leary. 
 t " O sanctas gentes, quibus haec nascuntur in hortis 
 Numina." 
 
 Juvenal, 
 
19 
 
 other wholesome fruits, still blooms in the 
 garden of the Rocks with undiminished 
 strength and fertility! All hail, too, most 
 ancient and venerable Tithes, by whatever 
 name ye delight to be called, praedial, mixed, 
 or personal ! — long may ye flourish, with your 
 attendant blessings of valuators, tithe-farmers, 
 and Bishops' courts, to the infinite recreation 
 of the Rock Family, to the honour and glory 
 of parsons Morrit, Morgan, &c., and to the 
 maintenance for ever of the Church Militant, 
 as by law (and constables) estabhshed in 
 Ireland ! 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 1189—1509. 
 
 Peynod between Henrij II. and Henry VIII. — The 
 Irish partial to Justice. — Ineffectual Efforts to ob- 
 tain it. — Parallel between the Barons oj' Edward I. 
 and the Orange Ascendancy. — Rebellion of the Macs 
 and O's. — The Rocks in Danger. — Penal Laws under 
 Edward III. — Captain Rock's Taste for Music. — 
 Suyprising Ingratitude and Obstinacy of the Irish. 
 
 A SHORT review of some of the reigns that 
 preceded the Reformation will sufficiently 
 account for the distinguished part, that my 
 ancestors played during the whole of that 
 period. 
 
 My unlucky countrymen have always had 
 a taste for justice — a taste as inconvenient to 
 them, situated as they have always been, as a 
 fancy for horse-racing would be to a Venetian. 
 
 In the reign of Edward I., that part of the 
 native population which came in immediate 
 contact with the English settlements, and 
 
SI 
 
 which it was, therefore, a matter of the utmost 
 importance to concihate, petitioned the King 
 to adopt them as his subjects, and to admit 
 them under the shelter of the EngHsh law. 
 They even tried the experiment of bribing the 
 Throne into justice. " An application was 
 made," says Leland, " to UfFord, the chief 
 governor, and eight thousand marks offered 
 to the King, provided he would grant the free 
 enjoyment of the laws of England to the whole 
 body of the Irish inhabitants. A petition, 
 wrung from a people tortured by the painful 
 feelings of oppression, in itself so just and 
 reasonable, and in its consequences so fair and 
 promising, could not but be favourably re- 
 ceived by a prince possessed with exalted ideas 
 of policy and government, and, where am- 
 bition did not interfere, a friend to justice." 
 
 But, though the King was well inclined to 
 accede to their request, and even ordered that 
 a convention should be summoned to take this 
 petition into consideration, luckily for the 
 lovers of discord and misrule, his wise and be- 
 nevolent intentions were not allowed to take 
 effect. The proud Barons, to whom he had 
 
entrusted the government of Ireland (or, in 
 other words, the Orange Ascendancy of that 
 day), could not so easily surrender their pri- 
 vilege of oppression* — but, preferring victims 
 to subjects, resolved to keep the Irish as they 
 were. The arguments, or rather evasions, 
 by which they got rid of the question alto- 
 gether, so closely resemble the shallow pre- 
 texts which have been played off against the 
 claims of the Catholics in our o^vn time, that 
 their folly, though of so old a date, appears 
 to us quite recent and modern, and they 
 might have been uttered by Mr. Goulburn 
 last week, without any breach of costume or 
 appearance of anachronism : — " Edward was 
 assured that an immediate compliance with 
 his commands was not possible in the present 
 state of things ; that the kingdom was in too 
 
 * " The great English settlers found it more for 
 their interest that a free course should be left to their 
 oppressions; that many of those whose lands they 
 coveted should be considered as ahens; that they 
 should be furnished for their petty wars by arbitrary 
 exactions; and in their rapines and massacres be freed 
 from the terrors of a rigidly impartial tribunal." — 
 Leland. 
 
great ferment and commotion, &c. &c." — 
 " And such pretences,""* adds Leland, " were 
 sufficient, where the aristocratic faction was 
 so powerful!''' 
 
 Read " Orange faction"" here, and you have 
 the wisdom of our rulers, at the end of near 
 six centuries, in statu quo. 
 
 The Grand Periodic Year of the Stoics, 
 at the close of which every thing was to 
 begin again, and the same events to be all 
 re-acted in the same order, is, on a mi- 
 niature scale, represented in the History of 
 the English Government in Ireland — every 
 succeeding century being but a renewed re- 
 volution of the same folhes, the same crimes, 
 and the same turbulence that diso^raced the 
 former. But " vive TEnnemi!"" say I: — 
 whoever may suffer by such measures, Captain 
 Rock, at least, will prosper. 
 
 And such was the result at the period of 
 which I am speaking. The rejection of a 
 petition, so humble and so reasonable, was 
 followed, as a matter of course, by one of those 
 daring rebelHons, into which the revenge of 
 an insulted people naturally breaks forth. 
 
u 
 
 The M'Cartys, the O'Briens, and all the 
 other Macs and O's*, who have been kept 
 upon the alert by similar causes ever since *!•, 
 flew to arms under the command of a chief- 
 
 * According to the following distich^ the titles 
 Mac and O are not merely what the logicians call 
 accidents, but altogether essential to the very being 
 and substance of an Irishman. 
 
 Per Mac atque O tu veros cognoscis Hibernos : 
 His duobus demptis, nullus Hibernus adest. 
 
 Thus translated by one of our celebrated poets. 
 
 By Mac and O, 
 
 You'll always know 
 True Irishmen, they say ; 
 
 For if they lack 
 
 Both O and Mac, 
 No Irishmen are they. 
 
 t The system of free-quartering, which was so sue-* 
 cessful in provoking insurrection in the year 1798, is, 
 like all our other blessings, of ancient origin. " The 
 compendious method," says Leland, " of quartering 
 the soldiers on the inhabitants, and leaving them to 
 support themselves by arbitrary exactions, was adopted 
 with alacrity and executed with rigour. Riot, rapine, 
 massacre, and all the tremendous effects of anarchy 
 
25 
 
 tain of my family, and, as the proffered han^ 
 die of the sword had been rejected, made their 
 inexorable masters at least feel its edge. 
 
 Still, such a hankering had the poor Irish 
 after law and justice, that, about fifty years 
 after, in the reign of Edward III., they again 
 tried to soften the hearts of their oppressors, 
 and " addressins^ themselves once more to the 
 Throne of England, petitioned that all those 
 odious distinctions, which had so long deluged 
 the land with blood, should, at last, be abo- 
 lished, and that the Irish inliabitants should 
 be admitted to the state and privileges of En- 
 glish subjects." 
 
 We need not ask, what was the fate of this 
 second memorable petition. Had it succeeded. 
 Captain Rock would not have been here to tell 
 
 were the natural consequences. Every inconsiderable 
 party, who, under pretence of loyalty, received the 
 king's commission to repel the adversary, in some par- 
 ticular district, became pestilent enemies to the inhabit- 
 ants. Their properties, their lives, the chastity of 
 their famihes were all exposed to these barbarians." 
 
 A historian of the Rebellion of 179 inight transfer 
 this passage to his page with perfect truth and fitness. 
 
 C 
 
the story. Gibbon says, in speaking of some 
 early action in which Mahomet was engaged, 
 " At that moment the lance of an Arab miffht 
 have changed the destinies of the world;" and 
 it is not less true, that a stroke from the pen 
 of Edward III. might, at this period, have 
 changed the destinies of the Rocks for ever. 
 
 But " Dis ahter visum esf" — that spirit, 
 which hasalwavs watched over the Ana^lo-Irish 
 councils, never suffering them, in a single in- 
 stance, to deviate into right, prevailed as usual, 
 and the result was as follows : — " The pe- 
 .tition was remitted to the Chief Governor, 
 Darcy. He was directed to refer it to the 
 Irish parliament, and, as usual, it was either 
 clandestinely defeated, or openly rejected." 
 
 Up rose the O's and Macs again, and again 
 did the flame of war extend as before, through 
 Meath, Munster, and those other classic re- 
 gions of turbulence, which still " live in num- 
 bers and look green in song ;" and so weak- 
 ened were the English by the hostility they 
 had thus provoked, that (as the historian re- 
 marks) " it was only the want of concert and 
 
BOSTON COLLr-.K L.BKak^ 
 
 union among the Irish that prevented them 
 from demohshing the whole fabric of Enghsh 
 power/"' 
 
 The following laws passed during this glo- 
 rious, but arbitrary reign, abundantly prove 
 that the spirit of the Penal Code did not wait 
 to be evoked by religious rancour*, but was 
 as active and virulent when both parties were 
 Papists, as it has been since Henry VIII. 
 made it a war of creeds as well as nations. 
 — " It was enjoined by Royal mandate that 
 no mere Irishman should be admitted into any 
 office or trust in any city, borough, or castle 
 in the King's land." Again, by the parha- 
 mentary ordinance, called the Statutes of Kil- 
 kenny, it was enacted, " that marriage, nur- 
 ture of infants, and gossipred with the Irish 
 
 * " In the reign of Edward III." says Lelandj 
 
 " pride and self-interest concurred in regarding and 
 
 representing the Irish as a race utterly irreclaimable." 
 
 Four hundred years after, in the time of Swift, it 
 
 was the fashion, in England, '^ to think and to 
 
 affirm that the Irish cannot be too hardly used." A 
 
 hundred years hence, perhaps, the same language 
 
 will be repeated. 
 
 c2 
 
28 
 
 should be considered and punished as high- 
 treason ;" and " it was also made highly pe- 
 nal to the English to permit their Irish neigh- 
 bours to graze their lands, to present them to 
 ecclesiastical benefices, or to receive them into 
 monasteries or religious houses.'" Even the 
 poetry and music of the poor Irish were pro- 
 scribed, and it was made penal " to entertain 
 their bards, who perverted the imagination by 
 romantic tales." 
 
 In the reign of Henry IV., the Irish 
 " Enemy" (for so the natives were styled in all 
 legal documents) showed, naturally enough, 
 a disposition to emigrate — rbut by a refined 
 mixture of cruelty and absurdity, which is 
 only to be found, genuine, in Irish legislation, 
 an Act of Parliament was passed to prevent 
 them. Those whom the English refused to 
 incorporate with subjects, they would yet 
 compel to remain as rebels or as slaves. " By an 
 Act ofthe Irish Parliament, in the eleventh year 
 of Henry IV., it was ordained that no Irish 
 enemy should be permitted to depart from 
 the realm." We have heard of a bridsce of 
 gold for a flying enemy, but an Act of Par- 
 
29 
 
 liament to compel him to stand his ground, 
 could only have been passed by an Irish Le- 
 gislature. 
 
 This unvarying system of hostility and op- 
 pression, which had been hitherto directed 
 only against the natives, v/as now extended to 
 such descendants of the old English settlers, 
 as had adopted a more natural policy than the 
 government, and by marriage, commerce and 
 other peaceful mediums, become gradually 
 mingled with the native population*. Upon 
 these, as lying most within the reach of 
 their insolence, the new comers of English 
 birth indulged in the most wanton ty- 
 ranny ; and thus not only gave birth to the 
 distinction of an English and Irish interest, 
 
 * In remarking upon this coalition, Leland sensi- 
 bly and candidly remarks— "It may be doubted 
 whether such effect could possibly have been pro- 
 ducedi if the old natives had ever been possessed in- 
 variably and unalterably with that inveterate national 
 aversion, to which their repeated insurrections are 
 commonly ascribed. The solution was easy, and 
 might have served the purposes of a selfish policy, 
 but there are other causes equally obvious to be as- 
 signed." 
 
30 
 
 but by identifying some of the oldest English 
 families with the latter, arrayed a new force 
 on the side of their enemies, and gave an 
 additional strength and respectability to re- 
 bellion*. 
 
 Perfect policy, throughout! — never, in the 
 paths of legislation, were there '^ meilleurs 
 guides pour iegarer^ So uniformly, too, 
 has the same tree produced the same fruits, 
 that, at three such distant epochs as the reigns 
 of Henry IV., Elizabeth, and George III., 
 we find the noble and English name of Fitz- 
 gerald " flaming in the fronf^ of Revolt ! 
 
 Among many minor points of resemblance, 
 between our Popish rulers of those days and 
 our Reformed ones of the present -f*, may be 
 
 * " English by birth and English by race were 
 become terms of odious distinction ; and every day 
 produced violences, which gradually became consi- 
 derable enough, to require the immediate interposition 
 of the King." 
 
 t There is no end to the resemblances between the 
 two periods. The following passage was not more ap- 
 plicable to the English colonists of those days, than it 
 is to the English capitalists of the present : ''■ Such con- 
 ceptions had been formed of the state of Ireland and 
 
31 
 
 counted that quick and distracting change of 
 Lieutenancies, succeeding one another hke 
 the groupes of a magic lantern, each in its 
 separate frame or slider, each differing from 
 its predecessor in plans and opinions — and thus 
 rendering the government, like Penelope's 
 web, a mere system of doing and undoing. 
 
 The account given by Spenser of this 
 motley procession of Lord Lieutenants is like 
 
 the disorders of its inhabitants, that even they who 
 had received Irish grants could neither be persuaded 
 to repair thither, nor to send any persons to the cus- 
 tody of their lands, notwithstanding the reiterated 
 edicts of the King." 
 
 Again, in the reign of Henry V. — " The king's per- 
 sonal appearance in Ireland is most earnestly entreated 
 to save his people from destruction." And, in the same 
 reign, — '^^ the infection of party and jealousy spread 
 through all orders, and was caught even by the Clergy, 
 who should have restrained and moderated it." The 
 following coincidence is still more curious : — " Talbo 
 conducted the government with the greater ease, as he 
 seems to have resigned himself entirely to the reigning 
 faction." 
 
 Thus, " semper eadem" (and generally according to 
 the Irish translation of it, " worse and worse,") is de- 
 stined to be the motto of Ireland to the end of time. 
 
32 
 
 a picture painted yesterday — so fresh are all 
 its colours and so living its likenesses. " The 
 governors (says he) are usually envious of 
 one another's greater glory, which if they 
 would seek to excel by better government, it 
 would be a most laudable emulation. But 
 they doe quite otherwise. For this is the 
 common order of them, that who cometh next 
 in place will not follow that course of govern- 
 ment which his predecessors held, either for 
 disdane of himself, or doubt to have his doings 
 drowned in another man's praise, but will 
 straight take a way quite contrary to tlie 
 former : as if the former thought hy li:eepmg 
 under the Irish to reforme them ; the 7iext^ hy 
 discountenancing the English, will curry Ja- 
 vour with the Irish, and so mahe his govern- 
 ment seem plausible, as having the Irish at 
 his comrnand. But he that comes after will 
 perhaps follow neither the one nor the other ^ 
 hut will dandle the one and the other in sucli 
 sort, as he will sucke sweet out of them both 
 and leave hitternesse to the poor country.'''' 
 
 Our modern plan, it must be confessed, im- 
 proves upon the distraction of this — for not 
 
33 
 
 only have we Governors of discordant politics 
 succeeding each other, but every new Governor 
 is provided with a Secretary, to differ with him 
 for the time being, and both receive their in- 
 structions from a Cabinet, not one member of 
 which agrees with another. If this is not 
 sounding the pitch-pipe of discord. Captain 
 Rock has no ear for that kind of music. 
 
 I have thus selected, cursorily and at ran- 
 dom, a few features of the reigns preceding 
 the Reformation, in order to show what good 
 use was made of those three or four hundred 
 years, in attaching the Irish people to their 
 English governors; and by what a gentle 
 course of alteratives they were prepared for 
 the inoculation of a new religion, which was 
 now about to be attempted upon them by the 
 same skilful and friendly hands. 
 
 Henry the Vllth appears to have been the 
 first monarch to whom it occurred, that mat- 
 ters were not managed exactly as they ought 
 in this part of his dominions; and we find 
 him — with a simplicity, which is still fresh 
 and youthful among our rulers — expressing 
 his surprise that "his subject of this land 
 
 c5 
 
34 
 
 should be so prone to faction and rebellion, 
 and that so little advantage had been hitherto 
 derived from the acquisitions of his prede- 
 cessors, notwithstanding the fruitfulness and 
 natural advantages of Ireland." 
 
 Surprising, indeed, that a policy such as 
 we have been describing, should not have con- 
 verted the whole country into a perfect Ata- 
 lantis of happiness — should not have made 
 it like the imaginary island of Sir Thomas 
 More, where " tota insula velut una familia 
 estr — most stubborn, truly, and ungrateful 
 must that people be, upon whom, up to the 
 very hour in which I write, such a long and 
 unvarying course of penal laws, confiscations, 
 and Insurrection Acts has been tried, without 
 making them, in the least degree, in love with 
 their rulers ! 
 
 Heloisa, tells her tutor, Abelard, that the cor- 
 rection which he inflicted upon her only served 
 to increase the ardour of her affection for him ; 
 — but bayonets and hemp are no such ''amor is 
 stimuli.'''' 
 
 One more characteristic anecdote of those 
 times, and I have done. At the battle of 
 
35 
 
 Knocktow, in the reign of Henry VII., when 
 that remarkable man, the Earl of Kildare, as- 
 sisted by the great O'Neal and other Irish 
 chiefs, gained a victory over Clanricard of 
 Connaught, most important to the English 
 Government, Lord Gormanstown, after the 
 battle, in the first insolence of success, said, 
 turning to the Earl of Kildare, " We have 
 slaughtered our enemies, but, to complete the 
 good deed, we must proceed yet further, and 
 — cut the throats of those Irish of our own 
 party *." 
 
 Who can wonder that the Hock Family 
 were active in those times? 
 
 * Leland gives this anecdote on the authority of an 
 Englishman. 
 
36 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 1509—1553. 
 
 Reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. — Gentle me- 
 thods of introducing the Reformation into Ireland. 
 — Parallel between Bishop Bale and Archbishop 
 Magee. — Unchangeahleness of the Irish. — Versa- 
 tility of the English. 
 
 Henry the Eighth, who v/as as fond of theo- 
 logy as of dancing *^ executed various pirou- 
 ettes in the former hne, through which he, 
 rather unreasonably, compelled the whole na- 
 tion to follow him ; and, difficult as it was to 
 keep pace with his changes, either as believer, 
 author, or liusband, or know which of his 
 creeds he wished to be maintained, which of 
 his books he wished to be believed, or v;hich 
 of his wives he wished not to be beheaded, the 
 
 * "Sir W. Molyneux (says Lloydj got in with 
 King Henry the Eighth, by a discourse out of 
 Aquinas in the morning, and a dance at night." — 
 State Worthies. 
 
37 
 
 people of England, to do them justice, obeyed 
 every signal of his caprice with a suppleness 
 quite wonderful — and danced the hays with 
 their monarch and his unfortunate wives, 
 through every variety of mystery and mur- 
 der, into which Thomas Aquinas and the 
 executioner could lead them. 
 
 But they, upon whom a blessing falls, have 
 no right to be particular as to the source 
 from whence it comes ; and though (as Gray 
 with infinite gallantry expresses it) 
 
 'Twas Love that taught this monarch to be wise. 
 And Gospel light first beam'd from Boleyn's eyes — 
 
 though the Faith, thus derived, has preserved, 
 ever since, the " variujn semper et mutabiW'' 
 character of its source, yet that it was a 
 blessing to England and her liberties, even 
 Captain Rock— all Papist as he is — will not 
 deny*. The very variety and mutableness 
 of Enghsh Protestantism is congenial with the 
 
 * I beg to direct the attention of the reader to the 
 remarkable liberahty here displayed by Captain Rock. 
 I must say, indeed, that in the course of my short 
 acquaintance with the Captain, I found him, upon all- 
 
38 
 
 spirit of Civil Liberty, which dehghts to fol- 
 low the branching rivulets of opinion, and 
 has always found her harvests most rich, 
 where these meandering streams most freely 
 circulate. 
 
 But the Irish were not to be dragooned 
 into blessings. Strongly attached as they 
 have ever been to their ancient faith and an- 
 dent institutions, it would have required either 
 a docility under the rod of despotism, which 
 is one of the faults most rarely imputed to 
 them, or a long course of confidence in the 
 wisdom and good intention of their rulers, 
 which is still, unluckily, a desideratum in their 
 hearts — to have weaned them from a religion, 
 so interwoven with all their feelings and 
 recollections. Proffered even by the most 
 friendly hand, the boon of Reformation would 
 have been slowly, if at all, accepted; but, 
 preached from the mouths of the same race, 
 
 subjects (except that of Church property), a perfect 
 gentleman — resembling, in this respect, most of his 
 brother heroes, among whom there is scarcely one. 
 
 Qui, s'il ne violoit, voloit, tuoit, bruloit, 
 
 Ne flit assez bonne personne. Editor. 
 
39 
 
 whose cry had never been aught but " Death 
 to the Irish!"' and accompanied by all that 
 apparatus of persecution, with which Law 
 and Religion have ever been surrounded in 
 Ireland, is it wonderful that the boon should 
 have been fiercely and at once rejected ? is it 
 wonderful that a continuance of the same per- 
 secuting policy, which made us spurn, without 
 inquiry, the creed of our oppressors then, 
 should have kept us good Catholics and bad 
 subjects ever since? 
 
 As a specimen of the gentle arts by which 
 the new religion was recommended to the 
 people, read what follows : — " Under pretence 
 of obeying the orders of state, they seized all 
 the most valuable furniture of the churches, 
 which they exposed to sale without decency 
 or reserve. The Irish annalists pathetically 
 describe the garrison of Athlone issuing forth 
 with a barbarous and heathen fury, and pil- 
 laging the famous church of Clonmacnoise, 
 tearing away the most inoffensive ornaments, 
 so as to leave the shrine of their favourite 
 Saint Kieran a hideous monument of sacri- 
 lege*."" 
 
 * Leland. 
 
40 
 
 The venerable crozier of St. Patrick, too, 
 which, even in the present enhghtened times, 
 would be viewed, I fear, with more genuine 
 homage, than all the assembled croziers and 
 mitres of the whole Protestant bench of Ire- 
 land, was by the Vandal reformers of that 
 period insultingly committed to the flames. 
 
 Conciliation^ indeed, seems to have been as 
 well understood then as it is at present; and 
 the Prelate, selected in the reign of Edward VI. 
 to smooth the way to the establishment of 
 the Protestant Religion in Ireland, appears to 
 have transmitted his mantle to that mild and 
 tolerant Archbishop, who is at present so ac- 
 tively employed in maintaining it there. 
 
 Raised from an obscure origin by his talents 
 and learning, Bale, the Bishop of Ossory, on 
 becoming a Lord of the Church aristocracy, 
 assumed the arrogance of station as a substi- 
 tute for the pride of birth, and mistaking vio- 
 lence of temper for religious zeal, employed 
 the " live coals from the altar" in kindling 
 around him dissension and revenge. " Even 
 the weak among the new- reformed (says the 
 historian) were terrified; and the Romish party 
 
41 
 
 held this sph'ited and turbulent enemy in the 
 utmost abhorrence. He insulted the preju- 
 dices of the people without reserve or caution, 
 and during the short period of his residence 
 in Ireland lived in a continual state of fear 
 and persecution."' 
 
 If a Charioteer of this temper was, like 
 Phaeton, but ill qualified, to guide the car of 
 the New Light up the steep ascent of its 
 " prima via," how doubly perilous is the 
 guidance of such a rash hand now, when 
 
 Ultima via prona est, et eget moderamine certo. 
 
 Ovid. 
 
 The obstinate perseverance of the Irish in 
 their old belief is not, perhaps, more remarka^ 
 ble than the readiness with which the people 
 of England veered about from one religion to 
 another, during the three reigns that succeeded 
 the Reformation *. 
 
 * Lloyd describes them, during the interval between 
 IMary's accession and her first parliament, as, " like 
 the Jewish children after the captivity, speaking a 
 middle language between Hebrew and Ashdod." — See 
 his ' State Worthies,' in which we find recorded a num- 
 ber of those eminent and, no doubt, excellent persons. 
 
42 
 
 It is a curious proof of the utter indiffer- 
 ence with which persons in authority viewed 
 those great changes of reUgion, that Sir An- 
 tony Saintleger, who had been entrusted with 
 the government of Ireland, when the new re- 
 gulations of divine worship were to be esta- 
 
 who contrived, notwithstanding the very opposite in- 
 terests that prevailed in the reigns of Henry, Edward, 
 Mary, and Elizabeth, to hold situations of trust under 
 all these sovereigns. 
 
 Nor was it only politicians that exhibited this 
 convenient flexibility— the great Reformer Latimer 
 changed his opinion no less than eight different 
 times.— See Lingard, vol. vii. p. 269. " Cranmer's 
 faith (says Mr. Brodie) was continually changing. 
 He at one time as furiously persecuted those who 
 denied transubstantiation as ever he did any other 
 imputed heresy, and was long a stickler for pil- 
 grimages, purgatory, &c." — History of the British 
 Empire. 
 
 In the Parliament convened in Ireland, upon the 
 accession of Elizabeth, " Most of the temporal Lords 
 (says Leland) were those whose descendants, even to 
 our own days, continue firmly attached to the Romish 
 communion; but far the greater jjart of the Prelates 
 were such as quietly enjoyed their sees, by conforming 
 occasionally to different modes of religion." 
 
43 
 
 blished, in the reign of Edward, was again 
 made deputy, in the time of Mary, when 
 these same regulations were to be all 
 abolished ! 
 
 Bacon seems to think that a versatile dis- 
 position gains as much in happiness as it loses 
 in dignity* — and, certainly, whatever dignity 
 Ireland may have maintained by adhering so 
 steadily to her ancient faith, the happiness 
 that results from versatility is all on the side 
 of England. 
 
 * Ingeiiia gravia et solennia et mutare nescia plus 
 plerumque habeant dignitatis quara felicitatis. — De 
 Augment. Scient. 
 
44 
 
 CHATER V. 
 
 ) 553— 1558. 
 
 Reign of Mary. — Lord Eldon and the Duke of Wel- 
 lington j Papists. — Captain Rock, a Protestant. — 
 
 Anecdote of Lord C n, — Peace and Tolerance, 
 
 for once, in Ireland. — Eradicating the cockle. — 
 Burnings on both sides. 
 
 The Irish were, as we have seen, from the 
 very first, declared " enemies'' by the Enghsh 
 law, and it is the only declaration of the En- 
 glish law by which they have very cordially 
 abided ever since. So invariably, indeed, has 
 England taught them to consider their inter- 
 ests as the very antipodes of hers^ that had 
 the restoration of Popery in Mary's time been 
 permanent, it would have required but a good 
 course of persecuting Popish Lord Lieute- 
 nants, to convert the great mass of the Irish 
 nation to Protestantism. 
 
 What a change would this have produced ! 
 Six millions of Lutherans might now have 
 been the petitioning body — the idolatry of 
 
45 
 
 the Corporation of Dublin would have been 
 lavished upon St. Bridget, instead of King 
 William — some Jesuit, instead of Lord 
 Eldon, some crusader, instead of the Duke of 
 Wellington, might have been proffering their 
 swords and counsels against the cause of Re- 
 ligious Liberty; and to crown all, Captain 
 Rock, for want of better, might have been 
 forced to put up with the Reformed Creed, 
 and endeavoured to make him. self no less trou- 
 blesome as a Protestant, than, he flatters him- 
 self, he is now as a Papist. 
 
 Such is the world, and on such chances de- 
 pend the wisdom and station of the men who 
 constitute it ! But, luckily for England, the 
 Reformation triumphed under Elizabeth, and 
 luckily for Captain Rock, all possible means 
 were taken to render it odious and intolerable 
 in Ireland. 
 
 According to the usual rule of contrariety 
 between the two countries, the reign of Mary, 
 which was attended with such horrors in Eng- 
 land, is almost the only interval of peace and 
 quietness, that the annals of my ancestors ex- 
 hibit in Ireland. Some local fighting, it is 
 
46 
 
 true, took place among my relatives the 
 O'Briens, O'Neals, &c., but little more than 
 was absolutely necessary to keep their hands 
 in practice against a change of administration. 
 
 The last Lord C n, upon being found 
 
 one day by a friend, practising with his sword 
 against the wainscot before dinner, and being 
 asked the reason of his assiduity at this exer- 
 cise, answered, " I have some company to-day 
 that I expect to quarrel with"" — and, pretty 
 much in the same manner, the members of 
 my family are obliged occasionally to re- 
 hearse, even in their moments of tranquillity, 
 for the reception of any new guests that may 
 be sent them, in the shape of governors, from 
 England. 
 
 With the exception, however, of these 
 trifling interruptions, both government and 
 people were at peace during the whole of this 
 reign; and it is worthy of remark that the only 
 peiiod, in which the Irish have been left the 
 unmolested exercise of their religion, was a 
 period of perfect tranquillity and tolerance — 
 such freedom from persecution being enjoyed 
 at this time, that, according to Ware, " several 
 
47 
 
 English families, friends to the Reformation, 
 fled to Ireland, and there enjoyed their opi- 
 nions and worship without notice or molesta- 
 tion:"' — this, too, during the bloody reign of 
 Queen Mary! Will our rulers never read 
 History ? 
 
 The pestilent bigotry, with which England 
 was infected after the Reformation, has been 
 represented as exclusively a CatJioUc disease — 
 and for no other purpose than to justify Pro- 
 testants, in appropriating all the remains of 
 the virus to themselves. Luckily, however, 
 the lion has taken his turn to be painter. 
 Dr. Lingard, an able Catholic divine, has 
 established beyond doubt the melancholy fact, 
 that the spirit of persecution was equally busy 
 on both sides; and that Cranmer was the 
 author of that Penal Code* against Heresy, 
 under which himself and others were so cruelly 
 sacrificed afterwards. 
 
 * " Edward died before this code had obtained the 
 sauction of the Legislature : by the accession of Mary 
 the power of the sword passed from the hands of one 
 rehgious party to those of the other ; and within a 
 short time Cranmer and his associates perished in the 
 
The intolerant principle of " eradicating the 
 cockle" and "cutting out the gangrene," was 
 common to the professors of both creeds — the 
 only difference was, as to the extent to which 
 this principle was put into practice : and, even 
 reducing the question thus to a mere summing- 
 up of victims, when we have taken into account 
 the Anabaptists and Unitarians, burned in 
 the time of Edward VI. and Elizabeth, to- 
 
 flaraesj which tliey had prepared to kindle for the 
 destruction of their opponents." — Lingard^, vol. vii. 
 p. 259. 
 
 Mr. Southey, indeed,, acknowledges that Cranmer, 
 when he brought Lambert to the stake, '' with cir- 
 cumstances of peculiar barbarity," believed the cor- 
 poral presence, "and held also the atrocious opinion, 
 that death by fire was the just and appropriate pu- 
 nishment for heresy. This (he adds) plainly appeared 
 afterwards in a case wherein he was deeply criminal." 
 
 With all this candour, however, Mr. Southey is but 
 a partial Martyrologist. ^Vhile he devotes whole pages 
 to the sufferings of almost every victim of Queen 
 Mary, he thus despatches a poor Dutchman who was 
 burned in the reign of Edward : — " There were some 
 also, who abjured Arian and Socinian opinions ; but 
 for the former a Dutchman suffered at the stake." — 
 Book of the Church. 
 
49 
 
 gether with the long Ust of Catholics, who, 
 under various pretences, were racked and exe- 
 cuted during the latter reign, it will leave a 
 balance, in favour of Protestant tolerance*, by 
 no means considerable enough to be looked 
 back to with pride — particularly, if this small 
 difference in the amount of bigotry then^ is to 
 be made a pretext by the stronger party now^ 
 for monopolizing the whole bigotry to itself, 
 in future. 
 
 * In Mr. Southey's Book of the Church, we find a 
 striking proof of the pertinacity with which falsehoods 
 are persevered in^ for the maintenance of the good old 
 cause of bigotry. In the very face of Dr. Lingard's 
 complete exposure of the absurd fiction relative to 
 Gardner's death, this gentleman has gravely re-stated 
 the whole tale as authentic. 
 
50 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 1558.— 1603. 
 
 Reign of Elizabeth. — Hibernia pacified. — Bon-mot of 
 Queen Elizabeth. — Famine a Means of quieting Ire- 
 land. — LiberalPolicy of England. — Kings of Egypt. 
 — Fish-adorers and Dog-ivorshippers. — One of my 
 Ancestors distinguished in the Rebellious Line. — 
 Precious Relic in the Possession of my Family. 
 
 The plan of pacifying Ireland by exter- 
 minating the Irish — the only feasible one that 
 has yet been attempted — was tried, on a grand 
 scale, during the reign of Elizabeth ; and had 
 so nearly succeeded, that under the govern- 
 ment of Lord Gray, the Queen was assured 
 that " little was left in Ireland for her majesty 
 to reign over but carcasses and ashes*."" So 
 
 * When the garrison of Smerwick, in Kerry, sur- 
 rendered, upon mercy, to Lord Deputy Gray, he or- 
 dered upwards of seven hundred of them to be put to 
 the sword or hanged. " Wingfield was commissioned 
 
51 
 
 satisfied, too, with the result of his mission 
 was another of her agents in this work of deso- 
 lation, that the record which he has left behind 
 him of his sanguinary exploits is entitled 
 " Pacata Hibernia," or " Hibernia pacified." 
 
 Hibernia pacified ! alas, alas, could the 
 shade of Sir G. Carew but once more hover 
 over his own region of Munster, he would 
 find that a new edition of his work of Paci- 
 fication is much wanted — he would find that, 
 though the same peace-makers, slaughter and 
 persecution, have been tried under almost 
 every government since his time, the grand 
 object is still unaccomplished — the Temple of 
 the Anglo-Irish Janus (that " forma biceps") 
 lies as open as ever. 
 
 As I am not writing a History of the 
 
 to disarm them ; and when this service was performed, 
 an English company was sent into the fort_, and the 
 garrison was butchered in cold blood ; nor is it with- 
 out pain (adds Leland], that we find a service so hor- 
 rid and detestable committed to Sir Walter Raleigh." 
 For this and other such services. Sir Walter Ra- 
 leigh had forty thousand acres of land bestowed upon 
 him in the county of Cork, which he afterwards sold 
 to Richard, first Earl of Cork. 
 
 D 2 
 
52 
 
 English power in Ireland, but merely track- 
 ing its course by hasty ghmpses, and point- 
 ing out a few foot-marks of the Hercules of 
 Despotism, from which the rest of his co- 
 lossal proportions may be estimated, I shall 
 content myself with selecting from the long 
 reign of Elizabeth a trait or two most cha- 
 racteristic of her general policy — or, rather, of 
 the policy of those employed by her ; as that 
 Queen herself would have been far too wise, 
 had her attention been fairly directed to the 
 subject*, to turn thus into a wilderness what 
 
 * On more than one occasion she endeavoured to 
 introduce measures of conciliation and justice ; but in 
 the intoxication of unlimited power, her Deputies were 
 incapable of either. Even when they affected to put 
 " her Majesty's merciful orders" into execution, the 
 terms of pardon which they offered were but new de- 
 vices of cruelty. Lord Mountjoy (as we are told by 
 his Secretary, Moryson) never received any to mercy, 
 but such as had drawn blood on their fellow-rebels. 
 " Thus," says he, '' M'Mahon and M'Artmoyle offered 
 to submit, but neither could he received luithout the 
 other s head." 
 
 Yet could this Lord Mountjoy write as plausibly, 
 as any of our modern Secretaries speak, on the ex- 
 
53 
 
 nature meant for a garden, or make Famine 
 and Devastation the hand-maids of her power. 
 There is a memorable saying of hers, pre- 
 served by Camden, which not only shows how 
 feelingly she was aware of the perverse wicked- 
 ness of the system pursued under her name, 
 but contains as bitter a comment on the whole 
 course of policy towards this country as the 
 most virulent United Irishman ever dared to 
 utter. — " Alas (said she, on receiving some re- 
 presentation of grievances from Ireland), how 
 I fear lest it be objected to us, as it was to 
 Tiberius by Bato : — You, you it is that are 
 
 pediency of a more humane and tolerant policy. 
 Thus, in a letter to the Lords of the Council, he says 
 — " All the Irish that are now obstinate, are so only 
 out of their diffidence to be safe in any forgiveness ; 
 and though they are weary of the war, they are un- 
 willing to have it ended, for fear lest, upon a peace, 
 there would come a severe reformation of religion. 
 The;i/ have the ancient swelling and desire of liberty in 
 their countrymen to work upon — their fear to be rooted 
 out, and generally all over the kingdom their fear of a 
 persecution for religion; the least of which alone has 
 been many times sufficient to drive the best and most 
 quiet states into sudden confusion." 
 
54 
 
 in faulty who have committed yourjlochs not 
 to shepherds hut to wolves T 
 
 And now for our specimens of the policy 
 of this reign. Let the poet Spenser, in the 
 first place, describe the frightful state of deso- 
 lation brought upon the people of Munster — 
 by a war into which their leader, the Earl 
 of Desmond, was driven by the cupidity of 
 the chief Governors, who had long looked 
 on his immense possessions with a wishful 
 eye*, and thinking him too tempting, as an 
 enemy, to be long suffered to remain a friend 
 (as he himself expresses it), " wrung him into 
 undutifulness/' — " Notwithstanding,'" says 
 Spenser, " that the same was a most rich and 
 plentiful country, yet, ere one year and a half, 
 they were brought to such wretchedness, as 
 that any stony heart would rue the same. 
 
 * Elizabeth knew the art of turning Irish rebellions 
 to account full as well as any of her successors. " Be 
 not dismayed/' she said, upon hearing that O'Neal 
 meditated some designs against her government : " tell 
 my friends, if he arise, it ivill turn to their advantage; 
 there will be estates for them who want."— Leland, 
 p. 238. 
 
55 
 
 Out of every corner of the woods and glynns, 
 they came creeping forth upon their hands, 
 for their legs could not bear them ; they 
 looked like anatomies of death; they spake 
 like ghosts crying out of their graves ; they 
 did eat the dead carrions, happy where they 
 could find them, yea, and one another soon 
 after; insomuch, as the very carcasses they 
 spared not to scrape out of their graves, and 
 if they found a plot of water-cresses or sham- 
 rocks, there they flocked as to a feast for the 
 time, yet not able to continue there withal ; 
 that in short space there was none almost 
 left, and a most populous and plentiful country 
 suddenly left void of man and beast *.'^ 
 
 The authors of this calamity reaped from 
 it the expected fruits. Five hundred and 
 seventy-four thousand six hundred and twen- 
 ty-eight acres were forfeited to the Crown, 
 and distributed among Englishmen. 
 
 As famine had succeeded so well in Munster, 
 it was adopted systematically in Leinster and 
 Ulster; and that death which Homer pro- 
 nounces to be the most miserable that man can 
 * State of Ireland. 
 
56 
 
 die, was now prescribed and administered uni- 
 versally as a panacea for all the evils of Ire- 
 land. " The soldiers,"" as we learn from Mory- 
 son, " encouraged by the example of their 
 officers, every where cut down the standing 
 corn with their swords, and devised every 
 means to deprive the wretched inhabitants of 
 all the necessaries of hfe. Famine was judged 
 the speediest and most effectual means of re- 
 ducing them. The like expedient was prac- 
 tised in the northern provinces. The governor 
 of Carrickfergus, Sir Arthur Chichester, issued 
 from his quarters, and for twenty miles round 
 reduced the country to a desert. Sir Samuel 
 Bagnal, with the garrison of Newry, proceeded 
 with the same severity, and laid waste all the 
 adjacent lands."" 
 
 Such was the executive part of the measures 
 of Elizabeth"'s ministers. — Let us now lift the 
 curtain of her Councils, and see what was 
 passing there. 
 
 It appears from the letters of Sir H. Sidney 
 and Sir J. Perrot* (who, to do them justice, 
 
 * It will be perceived that throughout my brief re- 
 view of the measures of England towards Ireland, I 
 
57 
 
 speak of such conduct with the horror it de- 
 serves), that when the death of the Earl of 
 Desmond, and the suppression of his adhe- 
 rents, had left an interval of tranquillity which 
 it was proposed to take advantage of, for the 
 long-desired purpose of introducing a system 
 of justice and liberal poHcy into Ireland, the 
 Counsellors of Elizabeth opposed themselves 
 to this humane design, and did not blush to 
 assign the following reasons for their opposi- 
 tion : — " Should we exert ourselves,"" said they, 
 
 have relied almost exclusively upon English autho- 
 rities — without availing myself either of the dreadful 
 details of the Irish annalists, the high-coloured state- 
 ments of the over-Catholic O'Sullivan, or even those 
 comments full of true Irish feeling, by which honest 
 Curry, in his valuable work on the Civil Wars of Ire- 
 land, brings out into stronger light and relief the 
 frightful enormities which his pen has grouped toge- 
 ther. 
 
 Leland, the only Irish authority on which I have 
 rested, was sufficiently protected against any undue 
 partiality to his country, by a Fellowship in the Uni- 
 versity of Dublin, a Prebend in St. Patrick's Cathedral, 
 and a Chaplaincy at the Castle — all good securities 
 against political heterodoxy. 
 
 d5 
 
58 
 
 " in reducing this country to order and ci- 
 vility, it must soon acquire power, conse- 
 (juence, and riches. The inhabitants will be 
 thus alienated from England ; they will cast 
 themselves into the arms of some foreign 
 power, or perhaps erect themselves into an 
 independent and separate State. Let us rci- 
 ther connive at their disorders; for a weak 
 and disordered people never can attempt to 
 •detach themselves from the crown of Eng- 
 land." 
 
 This policy was not new in the history of 
 nations. Diodorus Siculus tells us, that the 
 ancient Kings of Egypt kept alive the spirit 
 of religious dissensions among their subjects, 
 as the best means of preventing a combination 
 against their own tyranny — w ell knowing, that 
 as long as a Dog-worshipper of Cynopolis w^as 
 ready to cut the throat of a Fish-adorer of 
 Oxyrynchus, there would be no fear of any 
 rational concord in the cause of liberty among 
 such people. Accordingly , at one time, by giving 
 superior privileges to the Dog establishment — 
 at another, by mortifying the Canine Ascend- 
 ancy, and even affecting an inclination to bring 
 
59 
 
 Fish worship into fashion, they contrived to 
 cherish such a deacQy animosity between these 
 two respectable creeds, that when the Romans, 
 who took somewhat more sensible views of 
 such matters, became masters of Egypt, it 
 required (as Plutarch tells us) the strongest 
 and most skilful interposition of their autho- 
 rity, to put down both Dog and Fish toge- 
 ther — or, at least, by removing all distinctions 
 between them, to render their worship a mat- 
 ter of as little consequence as they were them- 
 selves. 
 
 Never had the Rocks a fairer harvest of 
 riot than during this most productive reign. 
 One of my ancestors, who lived and battled 
 through the whole of it, has transmitted to his 
 descendants the high and illustrious distinction, 
 of having been personally engaged in no less 
 than forty rebellions — making within five of 
 the number of years that good Queen Bess 
 (as he well might call her) reigned — to say 
 nothing of a multitude of episodical insurrec- 
 tions, of a lighter nature, with which he 
 amused his summer months. 
 
60 
 
 This great ornament of our family (who 
 appears to have been a most polyonymous, 
 or rather polyomichronymous person, being 
 christened O'Brien, O'Murtagh, OXaughhn, 
 0"'Shane, &c.) was one of the worthies se- 
 lected by the great Tirone, Prince of Ulster, 
 to accompany him in his celebrated pilgrimage 
 to the Holy Cross of Tipperary. He was 
 also at the battle of the Pass of Plumes, where 
 the gay young soldiers of the Earl of Essex 
 were pkicked, like fowls, by the brave rebel 
 O'Moore — and one of those Plumes (supposed 
 to be that which he took on the occasion) is 
 still preserved as a relic in the Rock Family. 
 
61 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 1603—1625. 
 
 Reig-n of James I. — Suspected of not being a Bigot. — 
 Declares by Proclamation that he is. — First Opera- 
 tions of the Law in Ireland. — Epigram. — Seven 
 Counties swept into the Treasury. — Extraordinary 
 Tranquillity of my Family. — Fragment of an Ode 
 to Riot, by a Rock on the Peace Establishment. 
 
 It is an awful thing when an absolute mon- 
 arch turns author. Henry VIII. would have 
 been perilous handling for a critic ; and a con- 
 troversialist, who can say, like James, " for 
 the present I have one of that Jesuitical order 
 in prison, who hath face enough to maintain 
 such doctrine,""' is, to say the least of him, a 
 disconcerting antagonist. 
 
 From the following passages, in one of his 
 speeches, it will be perceived how little tliis 
 Royal author cared for reviewers, — even for 
 reviewers of the Satanic school, which must 
 
62 
 
 be as formidable, I presume, in criticism, as its 
 fellow school is in poetry : — " I confess I am 
 loath to hang a priest only for religion-sake, 
 and saying mass ; but if he refuses to take the 
 oath of allegiance, (which, let the pope and 
 all the devils in hell say what they zvill, yet, 
 as youjind by my book, is merely civil), those 
 that so refuse the oath, and are polypragmatic, 
 I leave them to the law."" 
 
 That the theological quibbles of this vain 
 pedant should have puzzled the Catholics of 
 Ireland into a belief that he meant to favour 
 their religion, is not at all surprising*. He 
 had also made them promises, before his ac- 
 cession to the throne, which they continued 
 most loyally to put their trust in, long after 
 he had violated them all, — a prince's promise 
 being that kind of convenient talisman, which 
 may be broken over and over, without, in the 
 least degree, losing its charm. 
 
 It is true King James gave fair notice of 
 
 * They ought;, however, to have been much sooner 
 undeceived, for one of his first most gracious Proclama- 
 tions was to order a general gaol- delivery, with the 
 special exception of " murderers and papists." 
 
63 
 
 his perfidy, and was so far honester than some 
 other princes * ; for though, Hke them, he availed 
 himself of the discontent and hopes of the Ca- 
 tholics, to embarrass the measures of the reign 
 which had preceded his own, yet did he not, like 
 them, attempt to carry the deceit any further, 
 or to keep hopes alive which it was his secret 
 intention to blast ; but thus, by regular Pro- 
 clamation, announced to his dupes, the mistake 
 they had been under in having the least re- 
 liance upon him : — " Whereas, his majesty is 
 informed that his subjects of Ireland have 
 been deceived by a false report that his ma- 
 jesty was disposed to allow them liberty of 
 conscience and the free choice of a relig-ion : 
 he hereby declares to his beloved subjects of 
 Ireland, that he will not admit any such liberty 
 of conscience as they were made to expect by 
 such report," &c. &c -}-. 
 
 And here, at least, his Majesty kept his 
 word. The exercise of their religion was 
 strictly forbidden , — their priests were banished, 
 
 * " Certi uomini (says Boccalini, when he wishes 
 not to be supposed to mean living kings) del tempo 
 antico, dei quali oggidi si e' perduta la razza." 
 
 t Curry. 
 
64 
 
 and severe penalties inflicted on such as should 
 harbour or entertain them. All Catholics were 
 obliged to assist at the Protestant church 
 service every Sunday and holiday ; and thus 
 they, who had been called " imps of Anti- 
 christ," &c. for listening to a Latin mass which 
 they did not understand, were now forced to 
 listen to an English liturgy, which they, being- 
 Irish, understood quite as little*. By a re- 
 finement of cruelty, too, Roman catholics of 
 condition were appointed by the state, under 
 the name of Inquisitors, to watch, and inform 
 
 * Nothing is new in Ireland. Even the Bible So- 
 ciety plan seems to have been tried upon the perse- 
 cuted and confiscated Irish of those times. 
 
 ^' It was ordered that the Bible and common prayer 
 book should be translated into the Irish language, 
 which was done : and every parish-church was obliged 
 to pay ten shillings for an Irish Bible, when not one 
 amongst a hundred could read or understand it. And 
 therefore an Irish protestant bishop did laugh at this 
 strange kind of alteration, and said to some of his 
 friends, ' In Queen Elizabeth's time we had Enghsh 
 Bibles and Irish ministers, but now we have ministers 
 outofEngland, and IrishBibleswiththem.'"— T/ifoire 
 of Cath. and Protest. Religion. 
 
65 
 
 against those of their own communion who did 
 not frequent the Protestant churches on the 
 days appointed ; and if, through any scruple 
 of pride or conscience, they neglected or re- 
 fused this degrading duty, they were heavily 
 fined and condemned to a long imprisonment. 
 
 " Where's your religion, and be d d to 
 
 you ?'"* says a pious gentleman in one of Cum- 
 berland*'s plays ; and much in the same sort of 
 edifying style was the Reformed Religion first 
 insinuated into the hearts of the Irish. 
 
 Another amiable feature in this reign w^as 
 that system of legalized plunder, which so 
 barefacedly flourished throughout the whole 
 of it ; and what Fielding has said, in prose, 
 of the Law, is equally true, in rhyme, of the 
 Government at this period : — 
 
 The Irish had long made a deuce of a clatter. 
 And -wrangled and fought about meum and tuum. 
 
 Till England stept in, and decided the matter, 
 By kindly converting it all into suum. 
 
 After some centuries of hints from the peo- 
 ple themselves, it was at last found out by the 
 
66 
 
 Attorney-general of King James *, that my 
 countrymen were by nature fond of Law and 
 Justice ; but, as both together would have 
 l^een too much for their unenlightened minds, 
 it was so contrived as to give them the former 
 without the latter ; and it is a curious proof 
 of the " amari aliquid^'' which has always 
 mingled with even the benefits we have re- 
 ceived from England, that the first use made 
 of the Enghsh law, on its first regular intro- 
 duction into Ireland, was to rob thousands of 
 the unfortunate natives of their property. 
 
 * " No nation/' (says Sir John Davies), " love 
 equal and impartial justice more than the Irish." 
 Lord Coke, too, gives the same character of them ; 
 and adds, " which virtue must necessarily be accom- 
 panied by many others." The first circuit of the 
 Judges into the northern province is thus described by 
 Sir John Davies, who was one of them : — ^' Though 
 somewhat distasteful to the Irish lords, it was most 
 welcome to the common people, who albeit they were 
 rude and barbarous, yet did they quickly apprehend 
 the difference between the tyranny and oppression 
 under which they had lived before, and the just go- 
 vernment and protection which we promised unto them 
 for the time to come." 
 
67 
 
 Under the pretence of a judicial inquiry into 
 defective titles, a system of spoliation was 
 established throughout the whole country, and 
 the possessions of every man placed at the 
 mercy of any creature of the crown, who 
 could detect a flaw or failure in his tenure* — 
 to ensure the certainty of which result, all 
 juries^, who refused to find a title in the king, 
 were censured in the castle- chamber, and com- 
 mitted to prison. 
 
 In one case, a whole county was swept into 
 the treasury by this process. " In the year 
 1611, on the seizure of the county of Wex- 
 ford, when, upon a commission to inquire 
 out his majesty's title to the county, the 
 jury offered their verdict of ignoramus to the 
 king'*s title, the commissioners refused to ac- 
 cept it, and bound the jury Xo appear before 
 
 * ** Discoverers were every where busily employed 
 in finding out flaws in men's titles to their estates." 
 — Lelaxd. ^' There are not wanting proofs of the 
 most iniquitous practices, of hardened cruelty^, of vile 
 perjury, and scandalous subornation, employed to de- 
 spoil the fair and unoffending proprietor of his in- 
 heritance." — Idem. 
 
68 
 
 them in the exchequer court, where, when five 
 of them still refused to find the title in the 
 king, the commissioners committed them to 
 prison/' With the same regard to justice, six 
 entii'e counties of Ulster, under the pretence 
 of a conspiracy, which, (for once, in Ireland), 
 did not exist, were forfeited " at one fell 
 swoop" to the crown. 
 
 Lucian tells us, that Mercury was hardly 
 out of his cradle before he took to thieving ; 
 and it cannot be denied that the infancy of the 
 law among us was distinguished by a similar 
 precociousness of talent. 
 
 Why, then, were my countrymen so quiet 
 during this reign ? and how did it happen that 
 under such genial influence of persecution and 
 robbery, the Rocks did not flourish with more 
 than wonted luxuriance ? 
 
 This is a problem which has puzzled 
 historians*. Mr. O'Halloran considers it to 
 have been a matter of sentiment. King 
 James, he says, was a descendant of our 
 
 * " The old Irish lords/' says Leland^ in endea- 
 vouring to account for this tranquillity, " were now 
 deeply impressed with the miseries of Tyrone's rebel- 
 
69 
 
 great ancestor Milesius ; and, therefore, (like 
 the Irishman lately, who was nearly murdered 
 on Saint Patrick's day, but forgave his as- 
 sailant " in honour of the saint,") we bore it 
 all quietly in honour of Milesius. 
 
 Sir John Davies takes a different view of 
 the matter, and is of opinion that " braying 
 people, as it were, in a mortar with sword and 
 pestilence," is the only way to make them 
 peaceable and comfortable. " Whereupon," 
 says this right-thinking Attorney-general, "the 
 multitude being brayed, as it were, in a mor- 
 tar with sword, famine, and pestilence together, 
 submitted themselves to the English govern- 
 ment, received the laws and magistrates, and 
 most gladly embraced King James's pardon 
 and peace in all parts of the realm with de- 
 monstrations of jo?/ ajul comfort.'''' 
 
 How little, at all times, have the Irish been 
 aware, that it was solely to produce " demon- 
 strations of joy and comfort" that this process 
 of braying in a mortar has so frequently been 
 
 lion, their power and consequence diminished, with- 
 out arms to furnish the remains of their followers at 
 home, and without hopes of succour from abroad." 
 
70 
 
 tried upon them. — " Felices, sua si bona 
 nor hit r 
 
 AVhatever may have been the cause of this 
 preternatural tranquiUity, it is certain that it 
 did exist to such an unaccountable degree, 
 that tlie mock conspiracy already alluded to, 
 and a short burst of rebellion under a gentle- 
 man, whom Hume introduces to us by the fo- 
 reign Yiirnie of Odogartie, but who turns out 
 (like little Flanigan disguised in " the blu€ 
 and gold"') to be no other than simple ]\Ir. 
 O'Dogherty, were the only signs of life ex- 
 hibited by my ancestors, through the whole 
 of this penal and oppressive reign. 
 
 May it not have been the management of 
 Parliaments (a game at which both court and 
 country were now, for the first time, learning 
 to play) that a good deal diverted the attention 
 of the people, from more violent modes of as- 
 serting their rights ? 
 
 This experiment, lil;e the beginnings of 
 steam navigation, was perilous, and accord- 
 ingly the boiler exploded in the following 
 reign. But, even at this early period, the 
 use that might be made of such a machine 
 
71 
 
 against the people was clearly perceived — and 
 
 the first rude essays of our political engineers 
 
 in this line, if not instructive, are at least 
 
 amusing. Thus, in order to procure a ma^ 
 
 jority * for those Penal Statutes which were 
 
 proposed in the Irish parliament of 1613, a 
 
 number of new boroughs were hastily created, 
 
 to which attornies'' clerks, and some of the 
 
 servants of the lord deputy were elected, and 
 
 when a representation of this grievance, among 
 
 others, was made to James, his kingly answer 
 
 was : — " It was never before heard that any 
 
 good subjects did dispute the king'^s power in 
 
 this point. What is it to you whether I make 
 
 many or few boroughs ? My council may 
 
 consider the fitness if I require it : but what 
 
 if I had created forty noblemen and four hun- 
 
 * Strafford, too, in the following reign, seems to 
 have made an equally unceremonious stride towards 
 parliamentary influence: — " I shall labour," he says, 
 in one of his letters, " to make as many captains and 
 officers burgesses in this parliament as I possibly can ; 
 who, having immediate dependence upon the crown, 
 may almost sway the business between the two parties 
 which way they please." 
 
72 * 
 
 dred boroughs? The more the merrier, the 
 fewer the better cheer." 
 
 Mathematicians (says Rabelais) allow the 
 same horoscope to princes and to fools ; and, 
 liowever irreverent the notion may be, there 
 are tim.es when one is inclined to think the 
 mathematicians right. 
 
 The impatience natm-ally felt by the ad- 
 herents of the Rock family at the unusual 
 tranquillity which prevailed during this pe- 
 riod, has been well expressed by one of my 
 ancestors, in a spirited Irish ode, of which I 
 have ventured to translate the opening stan- 
 zas, though without the least hope of being 
 able to give any adequate idea of the abrupt 
 and bursting energy of the original. 
 
 "RuPES sonant carmina." — Virgil. 
 
 Where art thou, Genius of Riot ? 
 Where is thy yell of defiance ? 
 Why are the Sheas and O'Shaughnessies quiet ? 
 And whither have fled the O'Rourkes and O'Briens ? 
 
 Up from thy slumber, O'Branigan ! 
 
 Rouse the INIac Shanes and O'Haggarties ! 
 Courage, Sir Corney O'Toole ! — be a man again — 
 Never let HeflPernan say " what a braggart 'tis !" 
 
73 
 
 Oh ! when rebellion 's so feasible, 
 
 Where is the kern would be slinking off? 
 Con of the battles! what makes you so peaceable ? 
 NiAL, THE GRAND ! wliat the clevl are you think- 
 ing of? 
 
74 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 1625—1649. 
 
 Reign of Chaides I. — Lo7^d Strafford. — Perfect Z)e- 
 spotism. — Hume's Notions of the " innocent and 
 laudable." — Proposed Coalition between Captain 
 Rock and the Emperor of Russia. — Fate of Straf- 
 ford. 
 
 Lord Strafford was a man whom the lovers 
 of arbitrary power ought to canonize ; for sel- 
 dom has more lustre been thrown over their 
 bad cause than by " those rare abilities of his, 
 (as Lord Digby well expressed it) of which 
 God gave him the use, but the devil the ap- 
 plication." 
 
 His government in Ireland was, on a small 
 scale, a perfect model of despotism *, combining 
 all the brute coercion of the East, with all 
 
 * In one of his letters he asserts triumphantly^, " now 
 the king is as absolute here as any prince in the whole 
 world can be." 
 
75 
 
 the refined perfidy and Machiavelism of the 
 West, and giving full rein to talents of the 
 noblest breed, in the most unbounded career 
 of oppression and injustice. 
 
 There are some of his acts which might 
 almost turn men into rebels but to read — and 
 yet Hume, to whom the severity of the Star- 
 chamber appeared only " somewhat blame- 
 able,"*'' has, in the same spirit, styled the acts 
 of Lord Strafford in Ireland, " innocent, and 
 even laudable.'"' 
 
 History has been called ' ' philosophy teaching 
 by examples" — and if the hearty concurrence 
 of Strafibrd with the views of his perfidious 
 master, in violating the solemn pledge given 
 to the Catholics * — ^if his private advice to the 
 
 * His promise to them of certain Graces or conces- 
 sions, in return for those voluntary contributions witli 
 which they had assisted him in his necessities. The 
 favours which they required of him (says Macdiarmid) 
 " were certainly moderate. They related to certain 
 abuses arising from a defective police; to exactions 
 in the court of justice; depredations committed by 
 the soldiery ; monopolies which tended to the ruin of 
 trade ; penal statutes on account of religion ; retro- 
 spective inquiries into defective titles, &c. &c." 
 
 e2 
 
76 
 
 monarch to disregard this pledge, while he 
 publicly rebuked the parliament for harbour- 
 ing the least doubt of its sincerity * — if his rea- 
 diness, when even Charles shrunk from the 
 responsibility of such deceit, to take all the in- 
 famy of this transaction on himself -[- — if that 
 
 Such were the evils^, for the suppression of which 
 these wretched people were obUged to bribe their mon- 
 arch ; and such was the monarch who could not only 
 consent to sell justice to his people, but who could take 
 the money first, and defraud them of the justice af- 
 terwards. 
 
 * " Surely," he said, " so great a meanness cannot 
 enter your hearts as once to suspect his majesty's gra- 
 cious regards of you, and performance with you, where 
 you affix yourselves upon his grace." 
 
 t Charles thus acknowledges this faithful service of 
 his '^ ame damme :" 
 " Wentworth, 
 
 " Before I answer any of your particular letters to 
 me, I must tell you that your last public despatch has 
 given me a great deal of contentment ; and especially 
 for the keeping off the envy of a necessary negative 
 from me of those unreasonable Graces that people ex- 
 pected from me." 
 
 The undisguised selfishness of Charles appears also 
 on another occasion, where, in recommending to Straf- 
 
unparalleled system of robbery, under the 
 pretext of an Inquiry into Titles, to which, 
 adopted with improved machinery from the 
 preceding reign, he gave all the impulse of his 
 powerful mind, and by which the whole pro- 
 vince of Connaught became the booty of the 
 crown and its minions^ if the arbitrary mea- 
 sures by which he enforced this scheme of 
 plunder, fining, pillorying, and branding such 
 jurors as hesitated to find a title in the king 
 — if his flagitious trial of Lord Mountnor- 
 ris*, where himself, the accuser, presided, 
 
 ford's attention some grants on the Irish establish- 
 ment^ which he was either to concede or refuse, as the 
 good of the service required, he says, " yet so, too, as 
 I may have thanks howsoever; that if there be any 
 thing to be denied, you may do it, not I." 
 
 * Strafford's contempt for the law, except as an in- 
 strument of power, breaks out continually and impa- 
 tiently in his letters. He was short-sighted enough 
 to look upon the opinion of the judges, with respect to 
 Ship-money, as " the greatest service which the pro- 
 fession had rendered in his time to the crown." In 
 one of his letters, too, from Ireland, he boasts of the 
 complete control which hehad gained over all the mini- 
 sters of justice, Avho now^ ^^ ministering wholly to up- 
 
78 
 
 and the only witness against the accused sat 
 among the judges — if such transactions as 
 these are to be held up as examples of the in- 
 nocent and the laudable, then let Hume's own 
 " Sceptic"*' take the world into his hands, and 
 remove all those landmarks of right and wrong, 
 of justice and injustice, by which honest men 
 have hitherto steered; let tyranny and tur- 
 bulence, perfidy and plunder, be the order of 
 the day among rulers and their subjects ; and 
 let Captain Rock and the Czar of Russia di- 
 vide the world between them. I shall not 
 complain of 7ni/ share in the arrangement, 
 and I will answer for the magnanimous Alex- 
 ander being equally satisfied with his. 
 
 It is not, however, Hume alone that has 
 contributed to throw a false light round the 
 
 hold the sovereignty, carried a direct aspect upon the 
 prerogative of his majesty, and squinted not aside upon 
 the vulgar and vain opinions of the populace." — Straf- 
 ford's State Letters. 
 
 It is to be regretted that Mr. Macdiannid did not 
 make more use of these spirited and highly charac- 
 teristic letters. A biographer of Lord Strafford should 
 make him tell his own story. 
 
79 
 
 memory of Lord Strafford. His able biogra- 
 pher^ Macdiarmid, has also, perhaps uncon- 
 sciously, given somewhat too softened a tone to 
 the " umhrata atqiie aspercC * of his picture ; 
 and has had the forbearance to go through 
 the detail of such insulting enormities, without 
 suffering one true spark of indignation to 
 " kindle as he runs." 
 
 The splendid talents of Lord Strafford, and 
 the imposing dignity of his death, may well 
 justify a feeling of sympathy in his fate ; but 
 there would be no living in this world if there 
 were not such examples, to hang up in the 
 halls where Power holds his revel, and, like 
 those avvful mementos in the banqueting- 
 rooms of the Egyptians, chasten his pride 
 and check the exuberance of his riot. 
 
 * Fresnoy, 
 
80 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 1641. 
 
 Rema?'ks on Rebellions. — Well got icp in Ireland. — 
 Journal kept by one of my Ancestors in 1641. — Ex- 
 tracts from it. — Hume's Mirejjresentations. — Pro- 
 testant Ghosts, deposed to by a Protestant Bishop. 
 
 To an amateur of Rebellions, like myself, the 
 contemplation of even an old Irish one is as 
 gratifying as the study of a real cinque-cento 
 to a connoisseur — the skill with which the 
 Govermnent has always furnished the ma- 
 terials for the work, being only equalled by 
 the con-spirito style in which the people have 
 always executed it*. 
 
 There is extant in our family a Journal kept 
 
 * This manufacture of rebellions began very early in 
 our history. In the reign of Henry III. (Leland tells 
 us) " in many places where the English had obtained 
 settlements, the natives were first driven into insur- 
 rections by their cruelty, and then punished with double 
 cruelty for their resistance." 
 
81 
 
 by one of my ancestors, during the early part 
 of the great Rebelhon of 1641; and, though 
 the good old gentleman who wrote it was bed- 
 ridden at the time, and therefore could not 
 share in the pastime that was going on, the 
 intense interest which he took in the progress 
 of the revolt, and the alternation of his hopes 
 and fears, according as the Government threw 
 in more or less fuel to the flame, are expressed 
 with a degree of earnestness and naivete, which 
 may render the perusal of a few extracts not 
 altogether unpleasant. 
 
 These details are also curious, as giving us 
 an insight into the process by which great Re- 
 bellions have always been got up in Ireland. 
 The same di-ama, a little modernized, was 
 acted over again in 1798 ; and the prompter'*s 
 book and stage directions are still at hand in 
 the archives of Dublin Castle, whenever an 
 able Orange manager shall be found to preside 
 over a renewal of the spectacle. 
 
 " September 9,% 1641. — Matters took well. 
 Sir William Parsons* hath but lately declared, 
 * One of the two Lords Justices. 
 
 E 5 
 
82 
 
 at a public entertainment*, that, within a 
 twelvemonth, no Catholic shall be seen in Ire- 
 land — have despatched this speech to Ulster, 
 where Sir Phelim O'Neal will turn it unto good 
 account. Also, Sir John Clotworthy hath 
 said in the House of Commons, that the con- 
 version of the Papists of Ireland is only to be 
 effected by a Bible in one hand and a sword in 
 the other. This, with a little engrafting of 
 other matter thereon, cannot fail, in time, to 
 bring forth good fruit. — That gallant gentle- 
 man, Roger Moore, is busy in the North : 
 those robberies committed on his noble an- 
 cestors, whereby himself is made a beggar, do' 
 sorely haunt him. 
 
 ^' October 3. — Informers, it is said, have 
 been to the Castle, to represent the unusual 
 and suspicious resort of persons to the house 
 of Sir Phehm O'Neal ; as also the secret jour- 
 neys of the Lord Maguire, &c. &c. But there 
 is no fear that the Lords Justices will attend 
 to these forewarnings. Rebellion is a goose 
 that layeth golden eggs, and they, at least, 
 will not be the fools to kill it-f-. 
 
 * The Beef-steak club of that day, I presume, 
 t " They who looked more nearly into the characters 
 
83 
 
 " October 25. — There wanted a puff to the 
 flame in the North, and it hath come as season- 
 ably as we could have desired. Certain pe- 
 titions have been, at public assizes and other 
 public places, made known and read to many 
 persons of quality, purporting that the ex- 
 tirpation of the Catholics is at hand *, and that 
 
 and principles of the Lords Justices, conceived,, and 
 not without reason, that they by no means wished to 
 crush the rebellion in its beginnings, but were secretly 
 desirous that the madness of the Irish might take its 
 free course, so as to gratify their hopes of gain by new 
 and extensive forfeitures." Lelaxd. 
 
 * That this was no visionary alarm may be proved 
 from a variety of testimonies. " It is evident," says 
 Dr. Warner, '' from the Lords Justices' letter to the 
 Earl of Leicester, then Lord Lieutenant, that they 
 hoped for an extirpation, not of the mere Irish only, 
 but of all the old English families also that were Ro- 
 man Catholics." Among many statements in Carte 
 to the same purport, I shall select the following: — 
 " There is too much reason to think, that as the Lords 
 Justices really wished the rebellion to spread, and 
 more gentlemen of estates to be involved in it, that 
 the forfeitures might be the greater, and a general 
 plantation be carried on by a new set of English Pro- 
 
84 
 
 all who will not forthwith turn Protestants, 
 shall be hanged up at their own doors. This 
 news hath been Kke a match unto the mine. 
 Sir Phelim O'Neal hath already seized upon 
 the castles of Charlemont and Mountjoy — 
 Tanderagee hath been surprised by O'Hanlon 
 —Sir Con Magennis is in possession of New- 
 ry, and a bold dash hath been made into Fer- 
 managh by Roger Maguire. Blood-letting, 
 however, is, as yet, but rare ; nor hath any 
 province except Ulster yet risen. 
 
 " 26. — Yesterday, their Catholic lordships 
 of the pale, Lords Gormanstown, Netterville, 
 Fitzwilliam, Howth, Kildare, Fingal, Dunsany, 
 and Slane, were to the Council to express their 
 abhorrence of the conspiracy that hath broken 
 forth, and to demand arms for their own de- 
 fence, and the annoyance of the enemy. But 
 the Lords Justices did dismiss them with much 
 
 testants all over the kingdom, to the rmn and expulsion 
 of all the old English and natives that were Roman 
 Catholics ; so, to promote what they wished, they 
 gave out speeches upon occasions, insinuating such a 
 design, and that in a short time there would not be a 
 Roman Catholic left in the kingdom." 
 
85 
 
 coldness and evasion*, and with but scant 
 supply of arms, whereat they are, as might be 
 expected, sorely mortified. Most marvellously 
 do these Lords Justices play into our hands ; 
 and if they but prosper in putting these great 
 nobles of the pale into desperation, we shall, 
 in truth, have rare work of it ! 
 
 " November 10. — All again looks down- 
 ward, and there seemeth but small chance of a 
 general rising this Av^nter. His Majesty hath 
 writ over to the Lords Justices that he Avill no 
 longer deceive his loving subjects of Ireland, 
 but that, in the Parliament forthmth to be as- 
 sembled, the long desired Graces shall be pro- 
 pounded and confirmed. Blank tidings these 
 
 * In the same manner the oflPers of the Catholic 
 gentry in 1798, to raise regiments, &c. were coldly 
 rejected; and Mr. Plunket stated, from his own 
 knowledge, in the House of Commons, last sessions, 
 that though, during the whole of the rebellion, the 
 Roman Catholics were most anxious to enter into the 
 yeomanry corps of Dublin, the Protestants ahnost in- 
 variably refused them admittance. So rigidly, at that 
 period, was Sir William Parsons's receipt for the mix- 
 ing up of a good rebelhon attended to. 
 
86 
 
 for our gallants in tlie North. Roger Moore 
 may now go whistle after his fair Leinster do- 
 mains, and Sir Phelim must turn the old Ty- 
 rone helmet into a drinking-cup. Our only 
 hope is in the Lords Justices. 
 
 " November 17. — The Lords Justices have 
 prorogued the Parliament without suffering 
 the promised Graces to be therein propounded, 
 or even mentioned, whereby all chance of a 
 redress of grievances is happily at an end, and 
 we may now expect a right merry winter. The 
 Byrnes of Wicklow were up on the 12th, the 
 twenty-four O'Farrels of Longford have joined, 
 and the Tooles and Cavanaghs of Caterlogh 
 are stirring. 
 
 " November 18. — Tidings just come to 
 hand, that on the night of the 13th ult. the 
 English and Scotch of Carrickfergus did issue 
 forth, and attack and murder, in the island 
 Magee*, 3000 men, women, and children, all 
 innocent persons, there being as yet no appear- 
 
 * There has been some controversy about the date 
 of this massacre, but the testimonies for fixing it early 
 in November preponderate. 
 
87 
 
 ance of revolt in that quarter. If this doth 
 not cause all Ireland to rise on the sudden, 
 then is the blood of her Macs run dry, and 
 her ancient O's become cyphers indeed. 
 
 " 19. — Already hath the scabbard been put 
 away, since the foul adventure of island Ma- 
 gee ; and, at Lurgan and other places, repay- 
 ment hath been taken, with heavy interest, 
 for the treachery of that night. Sir Phehm is 
 now blooded, and we shall not soon see the 
 end on't. 
 
 '^ December S.— The Lords Justices have 
 taken back with much insult the few arms en- 
 trusted to the Lords of the Pale, and banished 
 them from Dublin, whereby tlie disaffection of 
 these great nobles is decided, and they are 
 already, it is said, communing with Roger 
 Moore. 
 
 " December 4. — Colonel Coote hath, in re- 
 Avard of his murderous carnage at Wicklow, 
 been appointed governor of Dublin. 
 
 " December 8. — There is an order of both 
 Houses of the English Parliament, dated 
 November 30, directing the Lords Justices to 
 " grant his Majesty's pardon to all those who 
 
88 
 
 within a convenient time shall return to their 
 obedience." This might, as the saying goes, 
 spoil sport ; but that the Lords Justices are 
 too keen on their scent of forfeitures, to suffer 
 themselves to be turned therefrom by any such 
 clemency ; accordingly, no proclamation of this 
 nature hath appeared, and matters go on right 
 riotously still*. 
 
 '^ December 9. — M mister will soon be up, for 
 the Lord President hath gone thither to tran- 
 quillize it. He hath already put to death four 
 persons at Ballyowen, hanged six innocent 
 labourers at Ballymurrin, and eight at Bally- 
 galburt-f; and when those loyal gentlemen, the 
 
 * Charles seems to have been too late aware of the 
 mistake which he had committed in breaking faith 
 with the Irish. In his answer to a declaration of the 
 English House of Commons, he tells them, that " if 
 he had been obeyed in the Irish affairs before he went 
 to Scotland, and had been suffered to perforyn his en- 
 gagements to his Irish subjects, there had been no re~ 
 hellion.''' — Relig. Sacr. Carolince, qtioted by Curry. 
 
 t The skill with which the county of Wexford was 
 roused from its tranquillity in 1798, by the seasonable 
 application of burnings, half-hangings, &c. was a pal- 
 
89 
 
 Butlers of Kilveylaghlen and Ballynakill, with 
 the Lord Dunboyne at their head, alarmed by 
 the ill blood which this cruelty had produced, 
 did come to offer their services in preserving 
 the peace of the province, the Lord President 
 told them, in his hasty, furious way, that 
 ' they were all rebels alike, that he would not 
 trust one soul of them, but thought it more 
 prudent to hang the best of them.' Whether 
 these noble gentlemen will continue to be loyal 
 after such speeches, remains to be seen. 
 
 " Decembe?\— At last the Lords and Gen- 
 tlemen of the Pale have declared themselves, 
 and now the whole nation hath risen in arms*. 
 
 pable but improved copy of this expedition of the Lord 
 President of Munster. 
 
 * '' The Lords Justices being at length forced by the 
 King to make some show of treating with these con- 
 federate Catholics, sent a messenger to their Supreme 
 Council sitting at Ross, offering a safe conduct to any 
 whom they might depute to represent their grievances 
 to the king's commissioners. In order, however, to 
 defeat the pretended object, the safe conduct con- 
 tained, among other insulting expressions, the words 
 ' odious rebellion,' applied to the proceedings of the 
 
90 
 
 The seal which their Supreme Council hath 
 framed to itself, wherewith to seal all cre- 
 dentials of office, beareth first the mark of a 
 long cross, then, on the right side, a crown ; 
 on the left a harp, mth a dove above, and a 
 flaming heart below the cross, with, round 
 about, this inscription: 'pro Deo, et Rege^ et 
 patrid Hihermd unanimes /' 
 
 I need not, I trust, apologize for the length 
 of these extracts — they contain the concen- 
 trated essence of Irish history. 
 
 The venerable journalist has recorded se- 
 
 confederates ; in consequence of which, these Catbo - 
 lie noblemen and gentlemen sent back the messenger 
 with a high-spirited answer_, saying, ' that they were 
 not, they thanked God, in that condition, as to sacri- 
 fice their loyalty to the malice of any; and that it 
 would be a meanness beyond expression in them, who 
 fought in the condition of loyal subjects, to come in 
 the repute of rebels to set down their grievances. ^ We 
 take God to witness,' added they, 'that there are no 
 limits set to the scorn and infamy that are cast upon 
 us, and that we will be in the esteem of loyal subjects, 
 or die to a man' " 
 
91 
 
 veral otlier items of this valuable receipt for re- 
 bellion, which was used with such effect by the 
 Lords Justices of that time, and by them trans- 
 mitted to all succeeding practitioners. " Thus 
 (he says) on the 22d of March, Mr. Hugh 
 M'Mahon was put to the rack in the Castle of 
 Dublin, and on the day following. Sir John Read 
 suffered the same*. Mr. Patrick Barnwell of 
 Kilbrue, who Avas racked the other day, is 
 now found out to be wholly innocent -[-, and 
 
 * Another imitation — '^ jNIany of the common people, 
 and some even in circumstances of hfe superior to that 
 class, particularly in the city of Dublin, were scourged, 
 picketed, or otherwise put to pain, to force a confes- 
 sion of concealed arms or plots." — Gordon's History of 
 the Rebellion of 179 S. 
 
 t Some of the mistakes of 1798 might rival this ; 
 for instance — '^ Mr. ^I^right of Clonmel was seized by 
 Mr. T. Judkin Fitzgerald, and flagellated almost to 
 death by receiving five hvmdred lashes, merely for 
 having in his pocket a letter written in the French 
 language, upon an indifferent subject." — Plowdex. 
 
 The trial and execution of Sir Edward Crosbie, now 
 universally acknowledged to have been innocent, was 
 one of those atrocities which it would be diflScult in 
 any times to parallel. " Protestant loyalists," (says 
 
92 
 
 many apologies have been thereupon made to 
 the old gentleman/' 
 
 By such means as these — and I have given 
 but a faint notion of their atrocity — was the 
 country lashed up into that paroxysm of 
 " wild justice," which, to this day, is denomi- 
 nated an " odious and unnatural rebellion," 
 and in which, the readers of Hume'^s history 
 are taught to believe, the whole guilt and bar- 
 barity lay on the side of the Irish *. 
 
 Mr. Gordon, himself a Protestant clergyman), " who 
 came to give testimony in favour of the accused were 
 forcibly prevented by the military from entering the 
 court. Roman Catholic prisoners were tortured by re- 
 peated floggings, to force them to give evidence against 
 him, and appear to have been promised their lives 
 upon no other condition than that of his convic- 
 tion." — Histoj^y of the Rebellion of 1798. 
 
 * Sir John Temple, upon v/hose authority Hume 
 chiefly rests, was about as trust- worthy a narrator of 
 the events of 1642 as Sir Richard jMusgrave has been 
 of those of 1790; and so well understood was the 
 appetite of this latter gentleman for the marvellous, 
 that it was the favourite pastime of some humorists 
 in Dublin, at the time when he was collecting mate- 
 rials for his History, to impose gravely upon him as 
 
93 
 
 That there was, in a conflict so long and so 
 violent, the usual quantum of horrors, which 
 bigotry on both sides is always sure to gene- 
 rate, cannot be denied ; but how far those 
 Depositions are worthy of belief, on which the 
 heaviest charges of cruelty against the Ca- 
 tholics rest, may be judged from the following 
 specimen of their rationality. 
 
 It was deposed, that the ghosts of the Pro- 
 testants drowned by the rebels at Portadown 
 Bridge were seen for a long time moving in va- 
 rious shapes upon the river, and Doctor Max- 
 well, Bishop of Kilmore (one of the most credi- 
 
 true, the most monstrous fictions — which he as gravely 
 transferred to his dull pages, and of which, no doubt, 
 some future Hume will avail himself, for the old, but 
 never obsolete task, of blackening the character of the 
 Irish. 
 
 There has lately appeared a short Treatise on the 
 RebelHon of 1641, by Mr. Matthew Fary of Phila- 
 delphia, in which the evidences, adduced by Temple 
 and others, of a general conspiracy of the Irish Catho- 
 lics at that period, are sifted ^vith a considerable degree 
 of acuteness, and most satisfactorily proved to be futile 
 and incredible. 
 
94 
 
 ble, perhaps, of all the deponents) enters into 
 grave particulars about these ghosts in his de- 
 positions, and describes them as " sometimes 
 having been seen, day and night, walking upon 
 the river ; sometimes brandishing their naked 
 swords ; sometimes singing psalms, and at. 
 other times shrieking in a most hideous and 
 feai'ful manner/' 
 
 We see by this, too, that Protestant bishops 
 can occasionally rival even Catholic ones in 
 their deglutition of the miraculous. 
 
95 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 1649. 
 
 Cromivellin Ireland. — The Irish nearly exterminated. 
 — Adoantages of Despatch. — Cromwell, the Devil, 
 and the Orangemen. — Parallel between the Soldiers 
 of Joshua and the Corporation of Dublin. 
 
 The ancient name of Ireland was Innisfail, 
 or the Island of Destiny — and, if there had 
 been added " of evil Destiny,"' the name would 
 have been but too truly prophetic of her hi- 
 story. Walsingham, who, in Elizabeth's time, 
 wished the whole island sunk in the sea, 
 breathed a kinder wish for it than he, in the 
 least degree, intended ; and, either to have 
 been moved farther off into the Atlantic — 
 " procul a Jove, sed procul a fulmine"" — or to 
 be (like Rabelais' island Medamothi) nowhere^ 
 are the only two desirable alternatives that 
 could be offered to us. 
 
 As if no possible change of circumstances 
 
96 
 
 could exempt this wretched people from suf- 
 fering, after having been so vigorously perse- 
 cuted and massacred under the Royal govern- 
 ment, as rebels, they were now still more 
 vigorously persecuted and massacred under 
 the Parliamentary government, as royalists; 
 and what with the Lords Justices on one side, 
 and Cromwell and Ireton on the other, as- 
 sisted by a pestilence, which was the least 
 cruel enemy of the whole, they were at last re- 
 duced to a state very nearly realizing that long- 
 desired object of English policy — their extir- 
 pation. Little more, indeed, was left of the Ca- 
 tholic population than was barely sufficient to 
 give life to the desolate region of Connaught, 
 into v/hich they were now driven like herds of 
 cattle by Cromwell, under the menace of a 
 proclamation, that '' all of them who, after 
 that time, should be found in any other part 
 of the kingdom, man, woman, or child, might 
 be killed by any body who saw or met them ;" 
 — while their estates, which, at that time, 
 constituted at least nine-tenths of the landed 
 property of the country, were divided among 
 his officers and soldiers, and among those ad- 
 
97 
 
 venturers who had advanced money for the 
 war *. 
 
 Such was CromwelFs way of settUng the 
 affairs of Ireland — ^and if a nation is to be 
 ruined, this method is, perhaps, as good as 
 any. It is, at least, more humane than the 
 slow lingering process of exclusion, disap- 
 pointment, and degradation, by which their 
 hearts are worn out under more specious forms 
 of tyranny: and that talent of despatch -[-which 
 
 * A survey being made of all Ireland for this pur- 
 pose^ the best land was rated only at 4*. an acre, and 
 some only at a penny ; and the soldiers drew lots in 
 what part of the kingdom their portions should be 
 assigned them. '' No man," says Carte, " had so great 
 shares as they who had been instruments to murder the 
 king. What lands they were pleased to call nnprqfit- 
 able (which were thrown in gratis) they returned as 
 such, let them be never so good and profitable." 
 
 Lord Antrim's estate, (says the same author) con- 
 sisting of 107,611 acres, was allotted to Sir J Clot- 
 worthy (afterwards Lord Massarene) and a few others, 
 in consideration of their adventures and pay, which 
 did not in all exceed the sum of 7000/. 
 
 t Ludlow tells us in his Memoirs, that, being on his 
 march, an advanced party met two of the rebels ; 
 " one of whom," says he, " was killed by the guard 
 
98 
 
 Moliere attributes to one of his physicians, 
 is no ordinary merit in a practitioner hke 
 Cromwell :— " C'est nn homme expeditif, ex- 
 peditif, qui aime a depecher ses malades, et 
 quand on a a mourir, cela se fait avec lui le 
 plus vite du monde.'"" A certain military 
 Duke, who complains that Ireland is but 
 half-conquered, would, no doubt, upon an 
 emergency, try his hand in the same line of 
 practice, and, like that " stern hero," Mirmillo, 
 in the Dispensary, 
 
 " While others meanly take whole months to slay. 
 Despatch the grateful patient in a day !" 
 
 Amono' other amiable enactments aeainst the 
 Catholics at this period, the price of five pounds 
 
 before I came up; the other was saved, and being 
 brought before me, I asked him, if he had a mind to 
 be hanged ?" and he only answered, " If you please." 
 " So insensibly stupid (adds he) were many of these 
 poor creatures." 
 
 Ludlow was mistaken — there was no stupidity here. 
 Both the history and character of the Irish — their 
 familiarity with the " plurima mortis imago," and 
 their careless contempt for it — were all expressed in 
 the answer of this rebel. 
 
99 
 
 was set on the head of a Romish priest — being 
 exactly the same sum offered by the same le- 
 gislators for the head of a wolf. The Athe- 
 nians, we are told, encouraged the destruction 
 of wolves by a similar reward (five drachmas) ; 
 but it does not appear that these heathens 
 bought up the heads of priests at the same 
 rate — such zeal in the cause of religion being 
 reserved for times of Christianity and Protest- 
 antism. 
 
 " The Devil," says Shakspeare, " can cite 
 Scripture for his purpose f' and the soldiers of 
 Cromwell being told by their leader*, that 
 " the Irish were to be treated as the Caananites 
 were by Joshua,'' most piously acted up to 
 the model set before them ; and, accordingly, 
 " all the spoils of the cities and the cattle they 
 took for a prey unto themselves, and every 
 
 * Cromwell's pious account of the surrender of 
 Drogheda (where, having been admitted, on promise 
 of quarter, he began a slaughter of the garrison which 
 lasted five days) is a precious sample of this perversion 
 of religion. " I wish," he says, in concluding his 
 letter to the Parliament, " that all honest hearts may 
 give the glory of this to God alone, to whom indeed 
 the praise of this mercy belongs." — Whitelocke. 
 
 F 2 
 
100 
 
 man they smote with the edge of the sword, 
 until they had destroyed them; neither left 
 they any to breathe "" 
 
 A similar taste for the warlike passages of 
 the Old Testament is observable in our mo- 
 dern Ohverians, Sir Abraham Bradley King, 
 and his brother Orangemen; and, by a re- 
 markable coincidence, it is from the same 
 book, Joshua, that they, too, draw their cha- 
 ritable inspirations. How far these Orange 
 heroes mean to carry their imitation of the 
 soldiers of Joshua remains to be seen; but, 
 I presume, the great victory which their leader 
 Sir Abraham lately gained over the law by 
 means of the House of Commons, was meant 
 as a copy of the conquest of Jericho through 
 the treachery of the harlot, Rahab — the 
 House of Commons enacting the part of Ra- 
 hab on the occasion. 
 
 Then, the ceremony of " taking twelve men 
 out of the tribes" is as evidently followed in 
 the selection of twelve good and true Orange- 
 men, for all purposes of impartial law and 
 justice — and " the accursed thing"' which got 
 among the soldiers of Joshua (meaning nei- 
 
101 
 
 ther more nor less than a spirit of Jobbing), 
 has been long supposed to lie lurking among 
 these faithfully scriptural Orangemen. '• They 
 have even taken of the accursed thing, and 
 have also stolen and dissembled also, and they 
 have put it even amcmg their own stuff.'''' 
 
 When to these striking points of similitude, 
 we add the perfect truth with which the whole 
 body may say — " For even all the inhabitants 
 of the country do faint because of us,'"* it will 
 be granted that in the art of " citing Scripture 
 to their purpose,"" neither Cromwell nor the 
 other personage mentioned by Shakspeare can, 
 in any degree, compare with their modern 
 imitators, the Orangemen, 
 
102 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 1660—1684. 
 
 Reign of Charles II. — Loyalti) of the Irish a super- 
 fluous Luxury. — Cromwell, Ireton, S)C. declared loyal 
 Protestant Subjects. — Their Followers rewarded. — 
 Catholic Loyalists ruined. — Satirical Fictions. — Un^ 
 successful Attempt to get up a Rebellion in Ireland. 
 — Only one Catholic Primate hanged. 
 
 " Loyalty,'' Swift says, " is the foible of 
 the Irish" — and it is certain that, whenever an 
 opportunity has been allowed them, they have 
 indulged in this " graceful weakness," even 
 more than was either dignified or necessary. 
 As it has been always, however, their fate to 
 be equally ill-treated when loyal as when re- 
 bellious, their loyalty, except as a matter of 
 needless luxury to themselves, makes no dif- 
 ference in the relations between them and 
 their rulers whatever. 
 
 The Catholics were the last in the three 
 kingdoms to lay down the Royal banner, after 
 
103 
 
 suffering all but utter extermination in its de- 
 fence. Yet, how was their devotedness re- 
 warded at the Restoration ? In one of the 
 very first Acts that issued from the Royal 
 hand — in order to fui-nish a pretext for con- 
 firming all the robberies of Cromwell — it Mas 
 coolly and unblushingly declared that they 
 were rebels * ; and that, having been conquered 
 by his Majesty's Protestant subjects, (meaning 
 Cromwell, Ireton, Lord Broghill, &c.) their 
 estates and possessions became vested in tlie 
 crown. This point once established, the path 
 of iniquity lay clear and open ; and upon such 
 monstrous and insulting falsehoods was that 
 Act of Settlement founded ; " by which," says 
 Lord Clare, " seven millions eight hundred 
 thousand acres of land were set out to a motley 
 crew of English adventurers, civil and mi- 
 litary, nearly to the total exclusion of the old 
 inhabitants of the island -h." 
 
 * These " rebels" when they were conquered, fought 
 under the command of the Marquis of Orrnond_, his 
 Majesty's Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and of Lord 
 Clanrickard, who was Deputy after him. 
 
 t " And thus/' adds Lord Clare, " a new colony 
 of new settlers, composed of all the various sects 
 
104 
 
 If such things were read in Gulliver, Can- 
 dide, or any such satirical fiction, they would 
 be regarded as caricatures, too extravagant 
 and distorted, of the perfidy and injustice of 
 Kings and Governments. But when we not 
 only know that such proceedings once took 
 place, but see actual, existing men, who still 
 cling to the principle of those proceedings, 
 and dignify it with the name of " the wisdom 
 of our ancestors,*" we feel that no romance 
 can do justice to such perverse absurdity ; 
 and that Klemius*, who represents a man 
 as ready to swear that the sun is triangular, 
 in order to qualify for a place which requires 
 that particular belief, would feel ashamed of 
 the tameness of his satire, if he could but 
 know how some of our statesmen transcend it. 
 
 It was, indeed, among the authors and 
 
 which then infested England, Independents^, Ana- 
 baptists, Seceders, Brownists, Socinians, Millenarians, 
 and dissenters of every description, many of them in- 
 fected with the leaven of democracy, poured into 
 Ireland, and were put into possession of the ancient 
 inheritance of its inhabitants." — Speech on the 
 Union. 
 * Journey under-Ground, 
 
105 
 
 patrons of this memorable Act of Spoliation 
 that the idea of excluding: Catholics from the 
 House of Commons (one of the boasted proofs 
 of the " wisdom of our ancestors"') first ori- 
 ginated. As Catholics were to be the persons 
 despoiled, their concurrence could hardly be 
 expected ; and though the House was of Crom- 
 welPs own packing, and almost entirely com- 
 posed of those soldiers and adventurers, who 
 were to become, by this measure, the pro- 
 prietors of near three-fourths of Ireland, yet — 
 unwilling that Catholics should have a share 
 even in their debates — they endeavoured to 
 exclude them altogether from the House, by 
 rendering the Oath of Supremacy an indis- 
 pensable qualification for a seat in it. The 
 attempt, however, was resisted, at the time, 
 as an invasion of the prerogative ; and the 
 few Catholics who were members had the 
 melancholy privilege of witnessing the formal 
 transfer of so large a portion of their country 
 to men, " who," as Swift says, "gained by re- 
 bellion what they and their fellow-countrymen 
 , lost by loyalty *."" 
 
 * When the memorials of the Catholics, in jus- 
 
 f5 
 
106 
 
 It may be perceived that^ in remarking on 
 the transactions of this and other reigns, I 
 seem for the moment to lose sight of my own 
 personal interest, and to kindle into serious 
 indignation against measures, on which the 
 renown and prosperity of my family are 
 founded. But, whether it be that, like the 
 man in Xenophon, I have two souls — a soul 
 for right, and a soul for riot — or that, in such 
 cases, I speak as a mere citizen of the world, 
 certain it is that I am not the less grateful to 
 the " wisdom of our ancestors,"" for that in- 
 
 tification of their claims^ were discussed before the 
 English Council, the Commissioners from the Irish 
 Parliament who attended upon this occasion, however 
 they differed (says Lord Clarendon) about their pri- 
 vate interests, all agreed in their implacable malice to 
 the Irish ; ^'^ insomuch that they concurred in their 
 desire that they might gain nothing by the King's 
 return, but be kept with the same rigour and the 
 same incapacity to do hurt, which they were then 
 under. And though eradication was too foul a 
 word to be uttered in the hearing of a Christian 
 Prince, yet it was little less or better, that they pro- 
 posed, in other words, and hoped to obtain." — Claren- 
 don's Life. 
 
107 
 
 exhaustible Fund of Discord which it has 
 bequeathed to me and my family; nor a 
 whit the less ahve to the merits of those per- 
 sonages of our own times, whether Chief 
 Secretaries, Lord Chancellors, Aldermen, or 
 Archbishops, who contribute weekly, monthly, 
 and annually their quotas to this venerable 
 Fund, and promise to make it as large and 
 lasting a blessing as the Debt of England 
 itself. 
 
 There is one singularity in this reign, 
 which well deserves to be recorded — the En- 
 glish Ministry tried to get up a rebellion in 
 Ireland, and could not ! 
 
 When that chef-d'oeuvre of bigotry and ab- 
 surdity, the Popish Plot, (whose madness has 
 left its slaver upon the policy of England ever 
 since,) w^as at the full height of its fraud and 
 frenzy, it was thought, with justice, to be a re- 
 flection on the authenticity of the conspiracy, 
 that Ireland did not lend it the ready sanction 
 of her experience ; and, accordingly, in addi- 
 tion to the usual provocations * of Penal laws, 
 
 * " There were too many Protestants then in Ire- 
 land," says Carte, "who wanted another rebellion. 
 
108 
 
 menaces of extermination, &c. &c., emissaries 
 were despatched throughout the country in 
 search of informers and witnesses, and the 
 example of the pensioned Gates held out, to 
 tempt \'illains of every creed and class into the 
 same path of prosperity. 
 
 But all would not do. The Irish like their 
 plots to be of home-manufacture, and extend 
 their hatred of imports even to that favourite 
 article, rebellion — so much so, that when dis- 
 content is most abundant in England (as on 
 the recent occasion of the Queen's trial) scarce 
 a sample of it is to be seen in the Irish 
 market. 
 
 The Duke of Ormond, too, who was Lord 
 
 that they might increase their estates by new for- 
 feitures. And letters were perpetually sending into 
 England, misrepresenting the Lord Lieutenant's con- 
 duct, and the state of things in Ireland." 
 
 So like is one part of the history of Ireland to an- 
 other, that in reading it, we are somewhat in the si- 
 tuation of that absent man, to whom DArgenson lent 
 the same volume of a work four successive times, and 
 who, when asked hov/ he liked the author, answered, 
 '' 11 me semble qu'il se repete quelquefois." The 
 Government of Ireland '^se repete" with a vengeance! 
 
109 
 
 Lieutenant at this period, took a different 
 method of keeping the peace from those which 
 have been generally adopted since*. The 
 Test Act, and the Bill for the expulsion of 
 Popish Peers from Parliament, were among 
 the scourges by which Shaftesbury and his 
 party meant to lash up the people into revolt. 
 But the Duke of Ormond by his influence 
 prevented these measures from passing — being 
 against them, as he expressed it, " in con- 
 science, as well as in prudence; because he 
 knew no reason why opinion should take away 
 a man's birth-right." 
 
 * He was urged to imprison all the principal Roman 
 Catholics of Ireland at thisjuncture, but he refused to do 
 so. " It was well known/' adds Leiand, "how much the 
 imprisonments and other severities of Sir W. Parsons 
 had contributed to hurry numbers into the last re- 
 bellion ; and neither the Duke nor the Privy Council 
 deemed it prudent to make a similar experiment."' 
 
 For this moderation and wisdom Ormond was_, of 
 course, hated and calumniated by the Protestant 
 Ascendancy of that day — and the same honourable 
 tribute (as Lord Wellesley well knows) awaits every 
 Lord Lieutenant;, who deviates into the same liberal 
 course. 
 
110 
 
 The oiily victim that the Protestant agi- 
 tators could lay their hands upon to in- 
 demnify them for their trouble, was the Roman 
 Catholic Primate of Ireland, Plunkett — " a 
 wise and sober man," says Burnet, " fond of 
 living quietly, and in due subjection to the 
 Government, without engaging in intrigues 
 of state.'' This, however, made no difference 
 to his orthodox persecutors — he was hurried 
 over to England, and condemned and executed 
 at Tyburn, on the accusation of suborned 
 witnesses, " who (again to use the language 
 of Burnet) hearing that England was then 
 disposed to hearken to good swearers, thought 
 themselves well qualified for the employ- 
 ment." 
 
in 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 1685—1701. 
 
 Reigns of James II, and William III. — Irish Ano- 
 malies. — English Injustice. — Battle of the Boyne. 
 — Forfeitures. — Vindication of William fro7n the 
 Orangemen. — The ^^ glorious memory" of Titus 
 Oates proposed instead. — Judge Scroggs's Wig. — 
 Rapparees. — Relatives of the Rock Family. 
 
 Among the many anomalous situations in 
 which the Irish have been placed, by those 
 " marriage vows, false as dicers"* oaths," which 
 bind their country to England, the dilemma 
 in which they found themselves at the Revo- 
 lution was not the least perplexing or cruel *. 
 If they were loyal to the King dejure, they 
 
 * Among the persons most puzzled and perplexed 
 by the two opposite Royal claims on their allegiance 
 were the clergymen of the Established Church ; who, 
 having first prayed for King James as their lawful 
 
11^ 
 
 were hanged by the King de facto ; and, if 
 they escaped with Hfe from the King dejacto^ 
 it was but to be plundered and proscribed by 
 the King dejure afterwards. 
 
 Hac gener atque socer coeant mercede suorum. 
 
 Virgil. 
 
 ^^ In a manner so summary, prompt, and high-mettled, 
 'Twixt father and son-in-law matters were settled." 
 
 In fact, most of the outlawries in Ireland 
 were for treason committed the very day on 
 which tlie Prince and Princess of Orange ac- 
 cepted the crown in the Banqueting-house ; 
 though the news of this event could not pos- 
 sibly have reached the other side of the chan- 
 nel on the same day, and the Lord-lieutenant 
 of King James, with an army to enforce obe- 
 dience, was at that time in actual possession 
 
 sovereign, as soon as William was proclaimed took to 
 praying for him; but again, on the success of the 
 Jacobite forces in the north, very prudently prayed 
 for King James once more, till the arrival of Schom- 
 berg, when, as far as his quarters reached, they re- 
 turned to praying for King William again. 
 
113 
 
 of the government. So little was common 
 sense consulted, or the mere decency of forms 
 observed by that rapacious spirit, which no- 
 thing less than the confiscation of the whole 
 island could satisfy ; and which having, in the 
 reign of, James I. and at the Restoration, de- 
 spoiled the natives of no less than ten millions 
 six hundred and thirty-six thousand eight hun- 
 dred and thirty-seven acres, now added to its 
 plunder one million, sixty thousand, seven hun- 
 dred and ninety-two acres more, being the 
 amount, altogether, (according to Lord Clare's 
 calculation) of the whole superficial contents of 
 the island ! 
 
 Thus not only had all Ireland suffered 
 confiscation in the course of this century, 
 but no inconsiderable portion of it had been 
 twice and even thrice confiscated. Well might 
 Lord Clare say, " that the situation of the 
 Irish nation, at the Revolution, stands unpa- 
 ralleled in the history of the inhabited world*." 
 
 * " And if/' (he as truly adds), " the wars of Eng- 
 land, carried on here from the reign of Elizabeth, had 
 been waged against a foreign enemy, the inhabitants 
 
114 
 
 Yet this is the period which our Orangemen 
 have the face to celebrate ! — and the day, which 
 brought such ruin upon Ireland, is to be marked 
 for ever among the Fasti of her Calendar, in- 
 stead of being, if possible, erased from recol- 
 lection for ever, as the fatal day of Pharsalia 
 was by the Romans, beyond the power even 
 of chronology to ascertain its date : — 
 
 " Tempora signavit leviorum Roma malorum, 
 Hunc voluit nescire diem.' 
 
 LUCAN. 
 
 Of all her days of sorrow^ this alone 
 
 Was left by Rome, ev'n to herself unknown. 
 
 James was not fitted by nature for either of 
 the tasks which he undertook, — neither for re- 
 ducing a free people to slavery, nor for raising 
 an enslaved race to freedom. He was in his 
 true element at St. Germain, touching for the 
 King's evil, and endeavouring in vain to make 
 
 would have retained their possessions under the esta- 
 blished laws of civilized nations." — Speech on the 
 Union. 
 
115 
 
 good Catholics of the Calvinist grenadiers and 
 dragoons that had deserted to him *. 
 
 Under such a leader, the ill-fated Irish, en- 
 cumbered and distracted by English feuds, 
 and strong only in hate, had but little chance 
 against a people proud in the new exercise of 
 their sovereign will, and under a chief so brave 
 and so self-possessed as William. It was one 
 of my ancestors, (a Corporal Rock of the gallant 
 Sarsiield's regiment), who, after the battle of 
 the Boyne, spoke those well-known words, so 
 pregnant with the feelings of mortified braver}^ 
 and so fully doing justice to both leaders, — 
 " Change kings, and we''ll fight it over again 
 with jou-f V 
 
 * Prefixed to Count Hamilton's Ze'neyde there is a 
 description of the court of St. Germain, at once me- 
 lancholy and diverting. One of the groupes in this 
 picture is " Unpere jesuite, grand convertisseur, entre 
 un grenadier et un dragon Anglais, tous deux deser- 
 teurs, raais qui me parurent plus fideles a Calvin 
 qu'au Prince d'Orange." 
 
 t It is said to be the same witty corporal that in- 
 vented the celebrated toast, " To the little gentleman 
 in velvet/' meaning the mole that threw up the hill 
 over which Crop (King William's horse) stumbled. 
 
116 
 
 Unequal as was the conflict that ensued, 
 the Irish, when disburdened of their king, 
 fought it out manfully, and, had the common 
 faith kept with enemies been observed towards 
 them, would have derived from the strug- 
 gle no ordinary advantages ; as the Articles 
 of Limerick, solemnly ratified under the great 
 seal of England, guaranteed to the Catholics 
 those two essential rights, liberty of conscience 
 and security of property. But, — as if every 
 compact between England and Ireland were 
 to be read, like witches' prayers, backwards, — 
 those very Articles, on the faith of which the 
 whole nation finally submitted, were not only 
 grossly violated in every particular, but fol- 
 lowed up, without any further provocation 
 from the Catholics, by a system of the most 
 odious persecution that ever disgraced the 
 bloody annals of bigotry. 
 
 The consummation of this iniquitous code 
 was reserved for the subsequent reign, but its 
 beginnings were prompt and rapid in the pre- 
 sent ; and the acts for disarming Papists, for 
 banishing all the regular clergy out of the 
 kingdom, for preventing their intermarriage 
 
117 
 
 with Protestants, &c. &c. show the spirit in 
 which the Articles of Limei-ick were acted 
 upon, even during the lifetime of him, who 
 had pledged his royal honour to their fulfil- 
 ment. 
 
 In justice, however, to William, as well as 
 to the shame of those who still employ his 
 name as a v/atch-word of persecution, it should 
 never be forgotten that his own principles 
 were completely adverse to the intolerant 
 measures thus forced upon him. Before his 
 expedition to England, he wrote thus to 
 the Emperor : — " I ought to entreat your 
 Imperial Majesty to be assured, that I will 
 employ all my credit to provide that the 
 Roman Catholics of that country may enjoy 
 liberty of conscience^ and be put out of fear of 
 being persecuted on account of their religion. "" 
 
 His employment, too, of Irish Catholics in 
 the army, was one of those criminal symptoms 
 of a wish to make Papists useful and at- 
 tached to the State, for which the English 
 House of Commons rebuked him in their ad- 
 dress of 1692; and there is but little doubt, 
 that, could he have pursued his own liberal 
 
118 
 
 views*, the same spirit that dictated his in- 
 structions to the Commissioners of Scotland — 
 " you are to pass an Act establishing that 
 Church Government, which is most agreeable 
 to the inclinations of the people"' — would have 
 also regulated his policy towards Ireland. 
 
 Even fettered and obstructed as he was by 
 the bigotry of those about him, it is well 
 known that, previously to the surrender of 
 Limerick, he was prepared to offer to the 
 Catholics no less advantageous terms*)*, than 
 the free exercise of their religion, half the 
 
 * Dry den thus, in one of his letters, does justice to 
 the real disposition of William : — "^ We poor Catho- 
 lics daily expect a most severe Proclamation to come 
 out against us (the Five Mile Act), and at the same 
 time we arc satisfied that the King is very unwilling 
 to persecute us, considering us to be but a handful, 
 and those disarmed ; but the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury (Tennison) is our heavy enemy, and heavy he 
 is, indeed, in all respects." — Letters to Mrs. Stewart, 
 1698-9. 
 
 t This was called (says Lcland) the " Secret 
 Proclamation," because, though printed, it was never 
 published, having been suppressed on the first intel- 
 ligence of the Treaty of Limerick. 
 
119 
 
 Church Establishment of Ireland, and the 
 moiety of their ancient properties ! 
 
 What a heterodox idol, then, have the 
 Orangemen set up unto themselves ! — That 
 pious and innocent Spaniard, who placed the 
 picture of Lais in his oratory, and daily 
 prayed to the fair Liberal, as a Saint, was 
 not more mistaken in the object of his idolatry 
 than they are. 
 
 In the name of history, then, xoliy do they 
 not select some fitter Patron? That learned 
 antiquary, Valiancy, has discovered, that the 
 name, Patrick, which we Irish give to our 
 National Saint, means " the Devil :" and the 
 same sort of blunder seems to have been com- 
 mitted by the Orangemen, in the selection of 
 their National Saint, King William — for who 
 but the Devil would have offered lialf the 
 Church Establishment to the Papists ? 
 
 They must, therefore, lose no time in adopting 
 some more appropriate Patron ; and I would ven- 
 ture to recommend Titus Oates to their notice, 
 as a Deliverer entirely after their own hearts. 
 I would, myself, (being anxious for the main- 
 tenance of their Institution, and regarding it 
 
120 
 
 as one of the main props of the Rock dynast} ) 
 subscribe to a statue of old Titus for their 
 use, which they might annually adorn and 
 dress out with Judge Scroggs"* wig — if it be 
 still extant — and thus, by this double homage 
 to the Informer and Judge, do justice to their 
 own notions both of Civil and Religious Free- 
 dom. Lord Farnham will, I trust, attend to 
 this friendly suggestion. 
 
 It was a little before the period of the Re- 
 volution, that an important branch of my 
 family first rose into notice, under the name of 
 Rapparees^ or Tories. As a full account how- 
 ever of these heroes has been given in an in- 
 teresting work called "the History of the Irish 
 Rogues and Rapparees,"" it is unnecessary for 
 me here to enter into any particulars about 
 them — except just to remark, that one of 
 their appellations, Tories, has been since 
 transferred to an equally valuable class of his 
 Majesty''s subjects, who have done as much 
 mischief, at the head of affairs, as the others 
 have at the tail, and who, though in no way 
 related to me, have served me, on all occasions, 
 even more effectually than if tliey were. 
 
121 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 1701—1727. 
 
 Reigns of Anne and George I. — Fate of Pope, if born 
 in Munster. — Penal Code. — Swift. — His Notions of 
 Tolerance. — Wood's Half-pence. — Independence of 
 Ireland. — Barbarous Law against Romish Priests. 
 — Hints for putting down the Rock Family. 
 
 In the reign of Queen Anne, the degradation 
 and enslavement of the great mass of the Irish 
 nation was completed ; and at a time when a 
 Catholic poet was illuminating the literature 
 of England, with that true light of genius 
 which never dies, in Ireland to be a Catholic 
 was to be an outcast from the commonest 
 privileges of humanity; — so that, if Pope 
 had been born a Munster Papist, instead of a 
 London one, by Act 7 William and Mary, 
 and 2 Anne, he would have been voted an 
 irreclaimable brute, and hunted into the moun- 
 tains. 
 
122 
 
 The Penal Code, enacted at this period, 
 will for ever remain a monument of the atro- 
 cious perfection, to which the art of torturing 
 his fellow-creatures may be brought by civil- 
 ized man. It was truly, as Burke calls it, " a 
 machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, 
 and as well fitted for the oppression, impo- 
 verishment, and degradation of a people, and 
 the debasement in them of human nature it- 
 self, as ever proceeded from the perverted in- 
 genuity of man."' 
 
 There was more blood drawn by Dioclesian, 
 and other heathen bunglers in persecution ; 
 but the refinement of wasting away the hearts 
 of a whole people by piecemeal was reserved 
 for the Christian and Protestant legislators of 
 Queen Anne. Let us not, however, give all 
 our execrations to them, and their now half 
 broken-up machinery of oppression — let us 
 keep some for those persons (and they are 
 neither few nor obscure) who at this moment 
 still sigh after those good old penal times — 
 who consider liberality and justice as degene- 
 racy from their ancestors, and who try to in- 
 fuse into every remaining fragment of that 
 
123 
 
 polypus of persecution, the same pestilent life 
 that pervaded the whole. 
 
 With this part of his country's history an 
 Irish Chronicler has little else to do than to 
 mourn over it and be silent. — The chief actors 
 in the scene can hardly be called Irishmen, 
 and the sufferers in the back-ground were 
 all mute and nameless. 
 
 The best and most patriotic men of the 
 time were but (as Swift styles Molyneux, 
 and, by implication, himself) " Englishmen 
 born here/' Swiffs own patriotism was little 
 more than a graft of English faction upon 
 an Irish stock — fructifying, it is true, into 
 such splendid produce, as makes us proud 
 to think it indig-enous to the soil. How 
 little his views of toleration expanded be- 
 yond the circumference of those about him, 
 appears from the violence with which he al- 
 ways opposed the claims of the Dissenters ; 
 and for the misery and degradation of his 
 Roman Catholic countrymen (who constituted, 
 even then, four-fifths of the population of Ire- 
 land), he seems to have cared little more than 
 
 g2 
 
124 
 
 his own Gulliver would for the sufferings of 
 so many disfranchised Yahoos. 
 
 The following passage not only proves the 
 inoffensiveness of this race of victims at that 
 time*, but is a specimen of the truly Spartan 
 'Sang-froid^ with which even the patriot Swift 
 
 * His pamphlet, also, entided " Reasons for repealing 
 the Test in favour of the Roman Catholics/' in which 
 he ironically brings forward the claims of the Catho- 
 lics, as far superior to those of the Dissenters, abun- 
 dantly proves to what a hopeless state the former class 
 were reduced, when the very justice of their cause 
 could be sported with so safely, and the strongest rea- 
 sons for their enfranchisement adduced as a sort of 
 argumentum ad ahsurduvi, under the perfect security 
 that such a result was impossible. 
 
 Sometimes, indeed, his good sense, as well as his 
 liatred to the Whigs, led him to laugh at the prevalent 
 alarms about Popery ; and, in one instance, the cir- 
 cumstances to which he alludes show to what ludicrous 
 lengths the Ascendancy Spirit was at that time carried. 
 In the Journals of the Irish House of Commons, there 
 is a Petition presented by the Protestant porters of 
 Dublin against one Darby Ryan " a Captain under 
 the late King James, and a Papist notoriously disaf- 
 fected, who bought up whole cargoes of coals, and em- 
 
125 
 
 could contemplate such a system of Helotism. 
 " We look upon them," he says, " to be alto- 
 gether as inconsiderable as the women and 
 children. Their lands are almost entirely 
 taken from them, and they are rendered inca- 
 pable of purchasing any more; and for the 
 little that remains, provision is made by the 
 late act against Popery, that it will daily 
 crumble away. In the mean time, the com- 
 mon people, without leaders, without disci- 
 pline, or natural courage, being little better 
 
 ployed those of his own persuasion and affection to 
 carry the same to customers, by which the petitioners 
 were debarred and hindered from their small trade 
 and gains." 
 
 On another occasion it appears from the Journals 
 that the Hackney Coachmen of Dublin asserted the 
 Ascendancy of the Box with a similar spirit, and prayed 
 the House that it might be enacted that none but Pro- 
 testant hackney coachmen might have liberty to keep 
 and drive hackney-coaches , Sfc. S^c. 
 
 To these circumstances Swift is supposed to allude, 
 when, with his usual happy humour, he remarks that, 
 if the Dublin Cries are allowed to continue, " they 
 ought to be only trusted in the hands of Protestants, 
 who had given security to the Government." 
 
126 
 
 than hewers of wood and drawers of water, 
 are out of all capacity of doing any mischief, 
 if they were ever so well inclined." 
 
 The affair of Wood's halfpence, upon which 
 so much of Swift's wit was lavished — " cere 
 ciere viros" — though magnified at the time into 
 more than its due importance, is interesting 
 even now, as having been the first national cause, 
 round which the people of Ireland had ever 
 been induced to rally. What neither Chri- 
 stian charity nor the dictates of sound policy 
 could effect, an influx of brass halfpence 
 brought about at once — and Protestant, Catho- 
 lic, and Presbyterian, uniting for the first 
 time, opposed themselves to their EngUsh go- 
 vernors, and triumphed over them and their 
 halfpence. 
 
 The danger of such a union — momentary and 
 unimportant as it was — to the precious Pal- 
 ladium of the Protestant Interest, did not 
 escape the observation of those who, as usual, 
 founded that interest on the eternal division 
 and disunion of the people. Accordingly we 
 find Primate Boulter complaining thus in a 
 letter to the Duke of Newcastle : " I find that 
 
127 
 
 the people of every religion, country, and party 
 here, are alike set against Wood's halfpence, 
 and that their agreement in this has had a 
 most unhappy influence on the state of this 
 nation^ by bringing on intimacies between Pa- 
 pists and tJte Whigs, who before had no cor- 
 respondence xmth them.'''' 
 
 This war against Wood's halfpence is also 
 remarkable, for having incidentally brought 
 into discussion that once animating, but now 
 extinguished, question of the Independence of 
 Ireland — -and it shows how the higher Spirits 
 of this world, like those of the world above 
 us, " Cry out one unto another,'' through the 
 waste of time ; for, the same principles which 
 Swift asserted at this period, were echoed by 
 Grattan at the glorious era of 1782, when the 
 dream of both patriots was, for a short mo- 
 ment, realised. 
 
 Among the many freaks of wanton and 
 exuberant cruelty, in which the legislators of 
 these two reigns luxuriated, there was one 
 measure respecting Popish priests, which I 
 know not how to describe, except by saying 
 that it deserves perhaps, par excellence, the 
 
128 
 
 designation of a Penal Law, and by refer- 
 ring, for the atrocious particulars, to Curry, 
 Plowden, and other historians. This pro- 
 position, it is said, was not only heard, but 
 acceded to, by the Irish House of Commons, 
 and transmitted, with the particular recom- 
 mendation of the Lord Lieutenant, to Eng- 
 land. But the Cabinet there, not quite so far 
 gone in barbarism, rejected it with indigna- 
 tion. 
 
 So low in the scale of humanity may men 
 be reduced by that false spirit of religion, 
 *' Which boasts from heaven the sacred spell, 
 ^' But reads it by a light from hell * !" 
 
 If I am asked what became of my an- 
 cestors during this still and stagnant interval, 
 I feel somewhat at a loss how to answer — 
 being aware that in acknowledging them to 
 have been as quiet and well-behaved, as an 
 American bear in his winter quarters, I give 
 a triumph to those sages, both of Church 
 and State, who consider Penal laws to be the 
 only true sedatives of the Rock spirit. 
 
 But I will even go farther, and grant that 
 * Curran. 
 
129 
 
 the Penal system, as then organised, was most 
 eminently calculated to ensure tranquillity; 
 and that a people in the state described by 
 Swift, must have been as tame and harmless 
 as the petrified population, of that City de- 
 scribed in the fables of the East. 
 
 There are but two ways, in short, of keep- 
 ing down the Rock family — either by re- 
 storing the Penal code to its full, original per- 
 fection, or by abolishing, in spirit as well as 
 in deed, all the odious remains of it. The 
 former of these modes our rulers cannot adopt, 
 and the latter, I know, they will not. Thus 
 secured by the strength of the people from 
 one remedy, and guaranteed by the eternal 
 foUy of our Government against the other ^ 
 what have I to fear for the permanence and 
 prosperity of our race "^ May I not rather 
 hope, that, like our namesakes, the Romans^ 
 we shall be hailed throughout all time, 
 Romanes, rerum dorainos, gentemque togatam. 
 
 LaWj peace, and justice, at our feet shall fall. 
 And the white-shirted * race be lords o'er all ! 
 
 • The costume adopted by the White-boys, Shana- 
 vests, and other Rock associations. 
 
 g5 
 
130 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 1727.-1760. 
 
 Reign of George II, '—An Event of much Importance 
 to the Rock Family. — The Clergy among our best 
 Friends. — Abolition of the Agistment Tithe. — Its 
 Consequences. — Conclusion cf the First Book. 
 
 In the eighth year of the reign of George 
 II., some twenty-seven years before I was born, 
 an event happened, whose consequences have 
 been so important to me and my family, that 
 it deserves a more than ordinary notice in this 
 Sketch. 
 
 Of all the purveyors of grievances to whom 
 The Rocks have been indebted, the Clergy, 
 it must be owned, have not been the most 
 backward — but have gone on regularly sup- 
 plying us with that raw material of dis- 
 content, which we know so well how to ma- 
 nufacture to our own taste afterwards. They 
 
131 
 
 / 
 
 began these services to us immediately at 
 the Reformation, as appears from Spenser's 
 description of the Protestant clergy of that 
 time. " Besides these vices (he says, afttr 
 running through some trifling items of ' gross 
 simony, greedy covetousness, fleshly inconti- 
 nence,' &c. &c.) they have particular enor- 
 mities. They neither read the scriptures, nor 
 preach to the people ; only they take the tithes 
 and offerings, and gather what fruits they can 
 off" their livings, which they convert as badly/"' 
 Of the Bishops of that period, too, the same 
 author says : " They do not at all bestow the 
 benefices which are in their own donation upon 
 auy (clergyman), but keep them in their own 
 hands, and set their servants, or horse-boys, 
 to take up the tithes and fruits of them.*" — 
 Thus we see how worthy of the divine origin 
 attributed to them, is the mode in which tithes 
 have always been collected and managed in 
 Ireland, — beginning with the " horse-boys'" of 
 the newly-reformed Bishops, and ending with 
 the drunken drivers and constables, employed 
 in the service of the Church at present. 
 
132 
 
 It cannot be doubted, that these Reverend 
 gentlemen and the Rocks must, from the 
 first, have come frequently into coUision with 
 each other ; but, in the reign of George II., 
 the Parhament interfered between them, and, 
 with the usual object of such interpositions — 
 to plunder both. 
 
 The Tithe of Agistment, the least objection- 
 able of any, as falling upon that class of occu- 
 piers which could best afford to pay it, was, 
 nevertheless, considered by these Honourable 
 land proprietors (who were of FalstafTs opi- 
 nion, that "base is the slave that pays,") a bur- 
 then not fit for gentlemen to bear. They 
 accordingly abolished it* — at the same time, as- 
 suring the Clergy, whom they thus despoiled 
 
 * For a full account of the proceedings on the Agist- 
 ment Tithe at this period, see Mr. William Monck 
 Mason's laborious and valuable " History of St. Pa- 
 trick's Cathedral." Mr. Mason's notices of the Life 
 and Writings of Swift are full of new and interesting 
 matter, and his enthusiasm for the memory of that 
 great man (though sometimes carried a little too far) 
 is highly honourable to his feelings as an Irishman. 
 
133 
 
 of their most profitable tithe, that it was all for 
 the " Protestant Interest" they did so ; and 
 handing them over for their support to the 
 " tillers of the land,'"* and to those wretched 
 cottiers — the very poorest of poverty''s children 
 — upon whom the burthen of the Protestant 
 establishment has, ever since, principally lain. 
 The consequences of this Vote to me and 
 my family, and the increased sphere of activity 
 v/hich it has opened to us, may be judged 
 from the events of the last sixty years. 
 
 " Inde (fide majus) glebce csepere moveri : 
 • • • crescitque seges clypeata virorum. 
 
 Ovid. 
 
 Then first the Men of Glebes awak'd to strife. 
 And pike-arm'd Crops sprung every where to hfe. 
 
 I have thus given a faint and rapid sketch 
 of the chief measures taken by our English 
 masters, from the time of Henry II. to the 
 accession of his late Majesty, to civiUze and 
 
134 
 
 attach the Irish people. I shall now pro- 
 ceed to show, in a brief review of my own 
 times, how steadily the same system has been 
 pursued ever since, with the s.ame happy re- 
 sults to the government, to the people, and 
 to me. 
 
 Matthew Lanesburgh — the Francis Moore 
 of the Continent — in apologizing for the delay 
 of his Almanack for 1824, pretty plainly inti- 
 mates that it was owing to the interference of 
 the Holy Alliance, who had denounced some 
 parts of his works as dangerous to the peace 
 of Europe; " I have, therefore,"" he says, 
 "consented to sacrifice these passages, because, 
 je tiens infiniment a ce qiCon me lise^ 
 
 From the same motive I have, myself, in 
 the course of these pages, rejected many hi- 
 storical facts and documents, though of consi- 
 derable importance to the illustration of my 
 subject; because I am well aware that, in the 
 present times, matter-of-fact has got much 
 into disrepute, and that statements, to be at 
 all listened to, must be measured by a minute- 
 glass — because I know, too, that of all the 
 
135 
 
 bores of the day, poor Ireland is (what some 
 of her antiquarians wish to prove her) Hyper- 
 borean — and because, in short, hke the worthy 
 almanack-maker just mentioned, ^'je tiens in- 
 Jiniment a ce qyCon me User 
 
 END OF THE FIRST BOOK. 
 
BOOK THE SECOND. 
 
 OF MY OWN TIMES. 
 
 HIC SALTEM MONITIS PARERE PATERNIS. 
 
 Ovid. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 Birth of Captain Rock. — Some Account of his Father 
 — Penal Laws. — Enactments with respect to Pro- 
 perty. — Beggary of the Rock Family. — Levellers. — 
 White-boys. — Christening of the Captain. — Brought 
 up to the Tithe Line. — Remarkable Prophecy. 
 
 I WAS born in , in the province of 
 
 Munster, about the beginning of the year 
 1763. My father, though the head and re- 
 presentative of our ancient family, had been 
 for a great part of his life as quiet and suf- 
 fering a Papist, as the Protestant Ascendancy 
 could, in its most fastidious moments, require. 
 Even the Scotch rebellion of 1745 appealed 
 in vain to his hereditary sympathies; nor 
 could all the pains taken by the Government, 
 on that and other occasions, to persuade him 
 and his family that they were notorious re- 
 bels, produce any overt-act that at all resem- 
 bled such a propensity. 
 
 One of the Counsellors of the Crown, in 
 
140 
 
 the year 1743, when there was an alarm of 
 a French invasion, went so far as to suggest, 
 that as the Papists one hundred years before 
 had begun a massacre on the Protestants, 
 the Protestants ought now to return the 
 compliment, by falling in the same uncere- 
 monious manner upon the Papists. But 
 even this hint was lost upon my imper- 
 turbable father. Not only he, but four- 
 iifths of his countrymen seemed sunk into 
 such a close resemblance of beasts of bur- 
 then, as might have gone far to satisfy that 
 doubter mentioned by Bolingbroke, who 
 said " he never could believe that slavery 
 was of divine institution, till he beheld sub- 
 jects born with bunches on their backs like 
 camels, and kings with combs upon their 
 heads like cocks." Whether the Papists of 
 that period had bunches on their backs, is 
 not ascertained — but that they were treated 
 as if they had, is agreed on all sides. 
 
 An event, however, happened a few years 
 before I came into the world, which at length 
 roused all the family spirit in my father, and 
 drove him to take that station in the affairs 
 
141 
 
 of Ireland, which the House of Rock seems 
 destined, at all times, to assume. 
 
 As Property and Education are tlie best 
 securities ao^ainst discontent and violence, 
 the Government, in its zeal for the advance- 
 ment of our family, took especial care that 
 we should be as little as possible encumbered 
 with either. Of the quantity and quality of 
 our education I shall speak in a subsequent 
 chapter ; but of the pains taken by our rulers 
 to prevent us from being spoiled by proper- 
 ty, some idea may be formed from a few of 
 their enactments on the subject. 
 
 By the laws which existed when I was 
 burn, and for many years afterwards, Papists 
 were declared to be incapable of purchasing 
 estates, or of taking lands, farms, or houses, 
 for a longer period than thirty-one years ; 
 and lest, under this short and precarious te- 
 nure, they might contrive to acquire a dan- 
 gerous degree of competence, there was a 
 clause in the Act obliging them to pay two- 
 thirds of the profit-rent to the landlord, leav- 
 ing them only the other third for the ex- 
 pense of tillage and subsistence. Upon any 
 
149 
 
 infraction of these provisions, either from the 
 lenity of the landlord, or from any private 
 arrangement between him and his tenant, 
 the whole property so situated became the 
 prey of the first Protestant discoverer, who 
 was lucky enough to detect the transaction, 
 and bring it before the courts of law. 
 
 If, notwithstanding these difficulties, a 
 Roman Catholic contrived to secure a few- 
 gleanings from the scythe of the Law, any one 
 of his sons (no matter how young — for Pro- 
 testants of all sizes were thankfully received) 
 might, by professing to become a convert to 
 the Established Church, not only enter into 
 immediate possession of a considerable part 
 of his father's fortune, but constitute himself, 
 by this act of conversion, heir-at-law to the 
 whole, with full power to mortgage, sell, or 
 otherwise alienate the reversion of it from 
 his family for ever*. 
 
 * In an address presented by the Catholics to the 
 late king, in the year 1775, this grievance is thus stat- 
 ed: — "By the laws now in force in this kingdom, a 
 son, however undutiful or profligate, shall not merely 
 by the merit of conforming to the established religion 
 
143 
 
 My father was one of those industrious Pa- 
 pists, who had managed to " deceive the Se- 
 nate" and make themselves easy and comfort- 
 able. He had even purchased privately a small 
 estate, which he was about to transfer in trust 
 to a poor Protestant barber, who had long 
 made himself convenient to Roman Catholic 
 gentlemen in this way* ; and w^ho, though his 
 
 deprive the Roman Catholic father of that free and 
 full possession of his estate, that power to mortgage, 
 or otherwise dispose of it, as the exigencies of his af- 
 fairs may require ; but shall himself have full liberty 
 immediately to mortgage or otherwise alienate the re- 
 version of that estate from his family for ever ; — a re- 
 gulation by which a father, contrary to the order of 
 nature, is put under the power of his son, and through 
 which an early dissoluteness is not only suffered but 
 encouraged, by giving a pernicious privilege, the fre- 
 quent use of which has broken the hearts of many de- 
 serving parents, and entailed poverty and despair on 
 some of the most ancient and opulent families in this 
 kingdom." 
 
 * Instances of this highly honourable humanity were 
 not uncommon among the Protestants at that time. 
 " Neither the menaces of power," says Mr. O'Connor, 
 " nor the contagion of example, nor the influence of 
 religious hatred, nor the prejudices of party, could era- 
 
144 
 
 own property did not exceed a few pounds 
 in value, actually held in fee the estates of 
 most of the Catholic gentry in the County. 
 Let me add, too, for the honour of human 
 nature and periwig-making, that, though 
 the Legislature had set a high premium on 
 perfidy, and even declared by a Resolution, 
 which is to be seen on their Journals, that 
 " prosecuting and informing against Papists 
 was an honourable service to the Govern- 
 ment," this Protestant barber was never 
 known to betray his trust — but remained the 
 
 dicate the seeds of humanity. They connived at, en- 
 couraged, and aided evasions of the penalties and pro- 
 visions of these iniquitous statutes. Many of them con- 
 cealed proscribed priests in their houses, and became 
 trustees or purchasers of properties and settlements of 
 estates for Catholics, in order to favour their industry, 
 and protect them from the ruin of the gavel act."— 
 History of the Irish Catholics. 
 
 In order, however, to frustrate this humane inter- 
 ference, the spiteful Legislature brought in a Bill, 
 enacting that " all leases or purchases, in trust for Pa- 
 pists, shall belong to the first Protestant discoverer, 
 and that no plea or demurrer should be allowed to 
 any bill of discovery, relative to such trusts, &c." 
 
145 
 
 faithful depositary of this proscribed wealth, 
 which an " honourable" hint to the law of- 
 ficers would have made his own for ever. 
 
 Before, however, my father was able to 
 effect the transfer, an informer had put the 
 proper authorities in possession of the se- 
 cret, and — I blush to state it — this informer 
 was one of his own sons * ; who, the day 
 after he had thus betrayed his father, was 
 received a welcome convert into the bosom 
 of the Established Church. 
 
 This precious system of proselytism, which 
 hoped to make good Protestants out of bad 
 sons, and to improve the religion of the peo- 
 ple by ruining their morals, succeeded but 
 little with the obstinate Irish, who remained 
 
 * I must say, for the honour of the family, that the 
 mother of this unnatural young Rock was suspected 
 of having some of the Cromwell blood in her veins, 
 being descended, as it was whispered, from an Oli- 
 verian drummer ; whereas, the third Mrs. Rock was a 
 regular O'Brien, counting back in a right line, through 
 Aoife, the daughter of Dealbha, the son of Cas, the 
 son of Conall-Eachluath, and so on, up to the Munster 
 knights of Tradaire, ante Chmtuvi. 
 
 H 
 
attached to their faith and their fathers in 
 spite of it. My unlucky brother, indeed (or 
 rather half-brother, for he was by the second 
 Mrs. Rock, and I by the third), formed a sad 
 exception to this honourable character ; and 
 was altogether a convert worthy of a Church, 
 which could take such means to recruit its 
 ranks. In his double capacity of informer 
 and proselyte, he entered into possession of 
 all the earnings of many a long day of toil, 
 and my father and the rest of the family were 
 reduced to beggary *. 
 
 Let it always be recollected that the laws 
 which encouraged such crimes, were not the 
 relics of any dark superstitious age, but 
 had been enacted in one of the golden pe- 
 riods of English literature, and remained, like 
 "phantoms, wandering by the light of dayf ," 
 
 * Mr. O'Connor, the learned Irish antiquary, used 
 to relate, as his biographer tells us, that his father, after 
 the Revolution, was obliged to plough his own fields, 
 and that he would often say to his sons, " Boys, you 
 must not be insolent to the poor. I am the son of a 
 gentleman, but ye are the children of a ploughman.'* 
 
 f Rogers's Columbus. 
 
147 
 
 amidst the general and increasing illumina- 
 tion of Europe. 
 
 Thus beggared, and, as it were, disin- 
 herited by his own child, my father (the an* 
 tiquity of whose ancestry was, as the reader 
 has seen, sufficiently venerable, to justify the 
 mortification which he felt at this reverse) 
 was obliged, in the decline of life, to " join 
 the labouring train," and sink into that class 
 of wretched cottiers, who then, as now, occu- 
 pied the very Nadir of human existence. 
 
 It was not long before he felt the good 
 effects of poverty and oppression, in quick- 
 ening and bringing into play the hereditary 
 tendencies of his nature. The first public oc- 
 casion, however, on which he displayed his 
 talents (though traceable, like all our other 
 opportunities of distinction, to the measures 
 of the Government,) was less directly con- 
 nected with Church and State than those 
 which succeeded. 
 
 The origin of my father's dehut in Insur- 
 rection was as follows: — 
 
 In the year 1762, the landlords of Munster, 
 tempted by an increased demand for pastur- 
 
 h2 
 
148 
 
 use. had inclosed those commons * on which 
 they had given their poor tenants a right of 
 feeding ; and either turned whole swarms of 
 those wretches out of their scanty holdings, or 
 left them at the mercy of greedy monopolists 
 (at that time called " land-pirates," but since 
 honoured with the lessoffensive name of Mid- 
 dle-men), who, having bid an enormous rent 
 for these newly-inclosed lands, wrung a pro- 
 portionate rent out of the miserable tenants 
 to whom they underlet them. Such was the 
 first occasion, on which my father's talents 
 were brought into active service. 
 
 Though our family had been so little heard 
 of for the last seventj^ or eighty years, yet, in 
 one respect, they had been by no means idle. 
 They were, as Swift says, " the principal 
 breeders of the nation ;" and when to this 
 
 * 111 the reign of Edward VI. there were insurrec- 
 tions in England from the same cause. " Whole ^.do- 
 mains'' (says Mr. Southey) "were depopulated for the 
 purpose of converting them into sheep-farms. To 
 such an extent was this inhuman system carried, that 
 a manifest decrease of population appeared in the mus- 
 ter-books.*'— Book OF THE Church. 
 
U9 
 
 enormous increase of their numbers, we add 
 the large stock of misery and ignorance, 
 v/hich, under theauspices of the Government, 
 they li 1 been laying in all that time, it must 
 be granted that, on their re-appearance in 
 public life, they came eminently qualified to 
 attract attention — and to take that lead in 
 the affairs of Ireland, which, under the same 
 governmentpatronage, they have maintained 
 to the present day. 
 
 The first title which my father and his 
 adherents assumed, was that of Levellers 
 —their interference with public matters 
 being as yet confined to levelling inclosures 
 of commons, turning up new-made roads, 
 and other little prceliidia of outrage and vio- 
 lence. They were soon, however, sum- 
 moned to a higher sphere of action. The 
 Tithe system began to attract my worthy fa- 
 ther's attention* ; and to disclose to him 
 
 * Attempts have been made to prove that Tithes 
 were not considered a grievance before this period — 
 (See an Inquiry, &c. by J. N.) but the following 
 passage in an " Essay on the Trade of Ireland," by 
 
150 
 
 those inexhaustible sources of discord, which 
 have made it one of the best cards in the 
 hands of our family ever since. 
 
 As the Clergy found the sources of their 
 incomes diminished by the extension of pas- 
 turage, they pressed in proportion more 
 Iieavily on that indigent class of occupiers, 
 whom the quantity of land thrown out of til- 
 lage left chiefly chargeable with their sup- 
 port. To be ground down by a hard- 
 hearted landlord was galling enough to the 
 poor Catholic ; but ic have both body and 
 spirit wasted away in thankless labour, in or- 
 der to support in luxury the ministers of that 
 
 Arthur Dobbs, Esq. published in 1729, will show- 
 that they have been consistent in their obnoxiousness 
 throughout — indeed where, or when have Tithes not 
 been considered a grievance ?— " The present method 
 of setting, levying or recovering Tithes in this king- 
 dom is frequently the ground of complaint, and an 
 occasion of differences and coldness between the 
 Clergy and Laity in many places ; which obstructs 
 the Clergy's being useful as spiritual guides, and has 
 lately been made a handle to induce thousands of the 
 Protestant dissenters to go to America.* 
 
151 
 
 religion, by which his own faith was pro- 
 scribed, his children tempted to turn trai- 
 tors, and himself chained down in misery 
 and bondage— this, indeed, was a refine- 
 ment in misery, — a sort of complicated in- 
 fliction, which, if ever the art of driving a 
 people mad should again become the study 
 of a Christian government, deserves to be 
 remembered among its most efficacious 
 rules. 
 
 To reform this grievance was the object 
 of my father's second appearance in the 
 field, and his followers on that occasion took 
 the name of White-boys — a title adopted, 
 as I have already explained, on account of 
 the white shirts they wore, and long the most 
 favourite of all those " vagrant denomina- 
 tions, by which," as Mr. Grattan says, " tu- 
 mult delights to describe itself 
 
 And here we have an instance of the truth 
 of that memorable saying of Lord Redes- 
 dale — that " there is in Ireland one law for 
 the rich, and another for the poor;" — 
 a sentence which ought to be written up 
 like the " Lasciate ogiii sjperanza,'^ over the 
 
152 
 
 door-way of every inferior Law court in Ire- 
 land. 
 
 In 1735, the land-owners had combined 
 against the Agistment tithe, — had formed 
 illegal associations in almost every county, 
 to defray the expenses of resisting this claim, 
 and indemnify those who had suffered by re- 
 sisting it. But did the Legislature punish 
 these gentlemen White-boys ? On the con- 
 trary, they turned White-boys themselves; 
 and, defying both judges and clergy, settled 
 the matter as summarily as Captain Rock 
 himself could have done. 
 
 In 1762, 1786, 8z;c. &c. the miserable 
 and starving cottiers upon whom those 
 Protestant land-holders had thrown the 
 whole support of the Protestant church,dared 
 to imitate their betters (in all but injustice), 
 and combined against an exaction unparal- 
 lelled in the annals of tyranny. It is need- 
 less to say what was the difference of their 
 fate — transportation — hanging — Acts " cal- 
 culated for the meridian of Barbary;"* — 
 
 * Arthur Young, in speaking of the White-boys of 
 this period; — *Acts were passed for their punishmentj 
 
153 
 
 every thing but relief, compassion, or even 
 inquiry. 
 
 It has been supposed that, in addition to 
 his organization and command of the White- 
 boys, my father also lent his powerful aid to 
 
 which seemed calculated for the meridian of Barbary ; 
 this arose to such a height, that by one they were to 
 be hanged, under circumstances, without the formali- 
 ties of a trial ; which, though repealed the following 
 sessions, marks the spirit of punishment : while others 
 remain the law of the land, that would, if executed, 
 tend more to raise than quell an insurrection. From 
 all which it is manifest that the gentlemen of Ireland 
 never thought of a radical cui'e, from overlooJdng the 
 real cause of disease, which in fact lay in themselves, 
 and not in the ivretches they doomed to the galloivs. Let 
 them change their own conduct entirely, and the poor 
 tvill not long riot. Treat them like men who ought to be 
 as free as yourselves. Put an end to that system of rC' 
 ligious persecution, which has for seventy years divided 
 the kingdom agaiiist itself In these two circumstances 
 lies the ewe of insiiri^ection : perforin them comjileteli/, 
 and you will have an affectionate poor, instead of op-' 
 pressed and discontented vassals." — Tour of Ikeland, 
 Here is sound sense, spoken fifty years ago — and yet 
 how little good it has done ! Well may we say, with 
 Congreve, " Who would die a martyr to sense, in si 
 country where the religion is folly?" 
 
 H3 
 
154 
 
 the Oak-boys and Hearts-of-Steel; the former 
 of whom took arms the following year, 1763, 
 to get rid of a species of Corvee, called the 
 six days labour, and the latter, some years 
 afterwards, in consequence of various acts of 
 oppression on the estate of an absentee no- 
 bleman — like those, by which the agent of 
 Lord Courtenay lately drove the County of 
 Limerick into revolt. 
 
 As the two latter insurrections were com- 
 posed chiefly of Northern Protestants, some 
 over strict Catholics have doubted whether 
 my father would condescend to meddle with 
 them. But the Rocks are no bigots in fight- 
 ing matters; nor indeed at all particular as 
 to whom they fight ivith, so it be but against 
 the common enemy, — i. e. generally speak- 
 ing, the Constituted Authorities for the time 
 being. I can easily, therefore, believe that 
 my venerable parent belonged not only to 
 White-boys, Oak-boys, Heart-of-Steel boys, 
 but to all other fraternities of Boys then ex- 
 isting, whose sports were at all likely to end 
 in the attitude thus described by Virgil : — 
 " 'Ln^Qxe j^endentes jpueros*^ 
 
155 
 
 In the midst of all these transactions 1 
 came into the world, — on the very day (as 
 my mother has often mentioned to me, 
 making a sign of the cross on her breast at 
 the same time,) when Father Sheehy, the 
 good parish priest of Clogheen, was hanged 
 at Clonmell on the testimony of a perjured 
 witness, for a crime of which he was as in- 
 nocent as the babe unborn. This execution 
 of Father Sheehy was one of those coujps 
 d'etat of the Irish authorities, which they 
 used to perform at stated intervals, and 
 which saved them the trouble of further 
 atrocities for some time to come. 
 
 As Tithe matters seemed likely to occupy 
 so much of the attention of our family, and 
 I happened to be my father's tenth son, it 
 struck him, that the ancient Irish custom of 
 dedicating the tenth child to the service of 
 the Church, might be revived in my person 
 with considerable propriety. He accordingly 
 had me christened Decimus (which he had 
 learning enough to know was Latin for 
 "Tenth"), and resolved, if my talent lay that 
 
166 
 
 way, to bring me up exclusively to the Tithe 
 department. How far my career in this 
 sacred line has justified his fond paternal 
 hopes, it is not for me to determine. I can 
 only say, that it has always been my pride 
 aud ambition to uphold the glory of the name 
 of Rock, and transmit it with, if possible, 
 increased lustre to my descendants. 
 
 I should mention also, among the motives 
 that determined him to this step, a singular 
 Prophecy, which had long existed in our 
 family — and which, though little heeded by 
 him in the time of his comfort and hope, he 
 now clung to with that fondness of belief, of 
 which a good Catholic, driven to despair, 
 alone is capable. It ran thus : 
 
 As long as Ireland shall pretend, 
 Like sugar-loaf, turn'd upside down. 
 
 To stand upon its smaller end, 
 
 So long shall live old Rock's renown. 
 
 As long as Popish spade and scythe 
 Shall dig and cut the Sassanagh's* tithe ; 
 
 *. The Irish term for a Protestant, or Englishman. 
 
157 
 
 And Popish purses pay the tolls, 
 On heaven's road, for Sassanagh souls- 
 As long as Millions shall kneel down 
 To ask of Thousands for their own. 
 While Thousands proudly turn away. 
 And to the Millions answer " nay" — 
 So long the merry reign shall be 
 Of Captain Rock and his Family. 
 
158 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Attention of the Government to the education of the RocTcs. 
 — Institutions for that 2nir pose. — Charter Schools.-^ 
 Royal Free Schools. — Some account of them. — Activity 
 of the Church in the same laudable cause. — Diocesan 
 Schools. — Parochial Schools. — Present state of them. 
 — Some account of the different educating Societies. — 
 Kildare Street^ London Hibernian^ S^c. 
 
 We have seen with what care the Govern- 
 ment, during the last century, provided 
 against any degeneracy in our family, by 
 never letting us rise, on the scale of property, 
 higher than zero. 
 
 Rockism, indeed, like the malaria, only 
 acts to a certain distance from the ground,- — 
 those who stand erect, are in little danger 
 from it, and the prostrate alone take the in- 
 fection properly. Guided by this experience, 
 our rulers, landlords, clergy, &c. have co- 
 operated successfully even to the present day, 
 in keeping down the great mass of the people 
 to that exact pitch of depression, at which 
 the contagion of Rockism is always found to 
 be most malignant. 
 
159 
 
 With such skilful provisions on the subject 
 of Property*, as I have endeavoured to give 
 
 * In the Second Report of the Deputation sent by 
 the Drapers' Company of London, to visit then* estates 
 in the County of Londonderry, in the years 1817 and 
 1818, there are the following sensible and liberal re- 
 marki^ on this subject: — Observing upon the great 
 proportion of poor individuals belonging to the Roman 
 Catholic church, the Reporters say — " This circum- 
 stance must arise from some cause which does not im- 
 mediately appear; Roman Catholic faith does not induce 
 poverty/, neither does poverty lead to the creed of the 
 church of Home ; the poverty of the Roman Catholics 
 is too general to be accidental, and it should seem that 
 it can only have arisen from the deprivations of property 
 to which the Catholics in Ireland have, at different times, 
 been subjected^ and the discouragement which the laws 
 till lately have offered to the accumulation of property 
 by Catholics, and which discouragement is not yet 
 wholly removed. If this be correct, it seems to re- 
 sult as a duty to those who have to form economical 
 arrangements of a public nature, not to make any dis- 
 tinction between their dependents, luho are equally loyal, 
 though they may entertain different creeds, and that 
 every encouragement which is held out to persons of 
 one religious persuasion, should be equally held out to 
 persons of every other religious persuasion ; that every 
 man sJiould look to his neighbour's opinion mth a comi-^ 
 
160 
 
 an idea of in the preceding chapter, it would 
 have been inconsistent not to connect some 
 equally provident measures, with respect to 
 Education. Our statesmen well knew that 
 an early culture of the mind alone 
 Emollit mores nee sinit esse feros : 
 or in other words, 
 
 Learning alone the heart with virtue stocks, 
 And hath, like music, power to " soften Eocks.^* 
 
 Accordingly they set about reducing us to 
 as minute a minimum in Education, as we 
 had, under their wise laws, attained in Pro- 
 perty ; and a brief review of the principal 
 steps taken for this purpose, both by Church 
 and State, down to the present time, will show 
 with what a steady eyeto the interests of the 
 Rock family, this impoverishing and be- 
 nighting system has always been pursued. 
 The principal mediums of education 
 
 deration that, perchance, his neighbour may be right, and 
 he himself in error. ^^ 
 
 These two Reports do the highest honour both to the 
 ■persons who drew them up, and to the Company by 
 whom such enlightened persons were employed. Let 
 Irish landlords and Irish Secretaries read them, an4 
 l)lush ! 
 
161 
 
 through which the Government had to act 
 upon the people, were the Charter Schools 
 and Schools of Royal foundation. 
 
 With respect to the former of these Insti- 
 tutions, it might have been possible, perhaps, 
 to manufacture the same number of rebels 
 and bigots at a somewhat less expense — but 
 the perfection of their machinery for the 
 purpose is now, I believe, acknowledged on 
 all sides. 
 
 These Charter schools under the general 
 name of the Incorporated Society, were 
 founded under George IL, in the year 1733, 
 for the professed object of " teaching the 
 children of the Popish and other natives ;" — 
 and, had they suffered us youth of the Ro- 
 man faith to drink at the same spring of in- 
 struction with our little Protestant fellow- 
 countrymen, without insulting or interfering 
 with the relifjion we brought from home with 
 us, there is no saying to what an alarming- 
 degree of amity the two religions might have 
 been brought in time. Nay, there was even 
 an opportunity for trying the experiment, 
 whether a Catholic could be turned into a 
 
162 
 
 Protestant without the employment of actual 
 force. 
 
 But our Irish rulers have always proceed- 
 ed in proselytism, on the principle of a wedge 
 with its wrong side foremost. It was soon 
 found by the Catholic parents, who had en- 
 trusted their children to this Protestant in- 
 stitution, that hatred to their religion was 
 the chief actuating motive of its directors ; 
 and that, like Vathek, when he seduced the 
 fifty little ones to the brink of the chasm, in 
 order to hurl them in as a sacrifice to the 
 Giaour, the Incorporated Society but took 
 possession of their children, for the purpose 
 of plunging them headlong into Protestant- 
 ism — a creed, unknown to them but by the 
 Spirit of persecution that dwelt in it, and by 
 the voracity for fresh victims with which that 
 Spirit, like the Giaour, had always cried out 
 from the chasm, "more, more!" 
 
 It may easily be imagined with what hor- 
 ror this design was regarded, by a people 
 who looked upon their faith as the only trea- 
 sure and consolation left them, and whose 
 tenacity in that faith had been tried by 
 
163 
 
 sword, famine, and fire for centuries. Too 
 indigent, however, to procure instruction in 
 any other way, and the laws forbidding per- 
 sons of their own persuasion to teach, some 
 wretched parents, anxious at all risks to edu- 
 cate their children, continued to let them 
 drink at this dangerous source — with the 
 same trembling apprehensions, with which the 
 people of the East visit those fountains, sup- 
 posed to be the haunt and ambush of ban- 
 ditti, and on some of vvhicli are inscribed the 
 warning words " Drink and away !'* 
 
 In proportion to their fears, their hatred, 
 of course, increased — while the children, 
 compelled to act the part of converts while at 
 school, took revenge for this forced hypocrisy 
 of their youth, by a life of open bigotry and 
 disaffection ever after. 
 
 Still, however, the association with Pro- 
 testant play-fellows gave a chance of future 
 friendships and connections, which, if they 
 did not end in conversion, at least would lead 
 to tolerance ; and encouraged, at a time of 
 life when the heart is most impressible, that 
 familiar colUsion by which asperities are 
 
164 
 
 smoothed away, and the exclusiveness of the 
 sectarian is lost in the fellowship of the man. 
 But even this chance, which let in a gleam 
 of light, too strong for the eyes of the Incor- 
 porated Society to bear, was shut out by a 
 Resolution * of that body in the year 1775, 
 declaring that none but the children of Pa- 
 pists should thenceforth be admitted to the 
 schools f — and how delicately they accommo- 
 dated themselves to the prejudices of these 
 chosen and exclusive pupils, will appear by the 
 following extracts from a Catechism, which 
 
 * The same policy was pursued with respect to the 
 institution at Maynooth, where it was the wish of the 
 Catholics that Protestants should be admitted on the 
 same footing with themselves ; but, this not suiting the 
 good old views of the Protestant interest, it was re- 
 fused. 
 
 In the same manner, in tho reign of Henry V. " the 
 Irish students," says Leland, ' oi"" the English race who 
 resorted to England for education, were disdainfully 
 excluded from the Inns of Court, by a shameful policy 
 which precluded them from such an intercourse, as 
 would have erased their prejudices and conciliated 
 their aifections to England.'* 
 
 f This Resolution was rescinded in 1 803. 
 
165 
 
 they continued to use to as late a period as 
 1811, when the recommendation of the Board 
 of Education induced them to relinquish it : 
 
 " Q. Is the church of Rome a sound and 
 uncorrupt church ? A. No ; it is extremely 
 corrupt in doctrine, worship, and practice." 
 
 " Q. What do you think of the frequent 
 crossings, upon which the Papists lay so 
 great a stress ? A. They are vain and su- 
 perstitious. The worship of the crucifix is 
 idolatrous." 
 
 The courteous address of Launcelot to the 
 young Jewess, " Be of good cheer, for truly 
 I think thou art damned," seems to have 
 been the model upon which the Protestant 
 Church has founded all its conciliatory ad- 
 vances towards the Catholics. 
 
 It may easily be supposed that it was only 
 the poorest and most worthless part of the 
 population, that, with such an insult meeting 
 them on the threshold, would suffer their 
 children to enter these schools; and the few 
 proselytes of any standing that they could 
 boast, — like those loiv-caste converts of our 
 missionaries in the East, whom their fellow 
 
166 
 
 Hindoos in derision call " Company's Chris- 
 tians," — were rare and marked enough among 
 their countrymen, to be pointed out, in the 
 same manner, as Charter-school Protestants. 
 So difficult was it at last to get up a de- 
 cent show of pupils — such as might furnish a 
 pretext for those enormous annual grants, by 
 which the Government kept this machinery 
 of demoralization in motion — that it was the 
 practice, at one time, to buy, and even steal 
 little Catholic children, in order to swell the 
 number of recruits for Protestantism, and re- 
 turn annually the proper complement of con- 
 verts to Parliament. 
 
 It will hardly be believed that the Im- 
 perial grants to these long-tried nuisances, 
 (whose chief produce of late years has been, 
 according to Mr. 0*Driscol, " Prostitutes* 
 
 * The privileges of the Ascendancy are, of course, 
 asserted as proudly among this, as among all other 
 classes of the community— according to the prece- 
 dent established by " the wisdom of our ancestors," 
 in the case of Nell Gwyn. « When Nell Gwyn," says 
 Grainger, « was insulted in her coach at Oxford by the 
 mob, who mistook her for the duchess of Portsmouth, 
 (another mistress of that king's but a Papist,) she 
 
167 
 
 and Orangemen,*") amounted for the first 
 sixteen years after the Union, to more, on 
 an average, than thirty thousand pounds per 
 annum; and for the present year 1824, the 
 aid to them from Government, exclusive of 
 their property in lands and funds, is twenty- 
 one thousand pounds f. 
 
 The Schools of Royal foundation are so 
 far more innocent than these " Chartered 
 
 looked out of the window, and said with her usual 
 good humour, * Pray good people be civil, I am the 
 
 Protestant w e ;' and this laconic speech drew upon 
 
 her the blessings of the populace, who suffered her to 
 proceed without fui'ther molestation." Biograph. Hist. 
 
 * See the Appendix to this gentleman's eloquent 
 work, " Views of Ireland," — in which there is a mix- 
 ture of sound sense with rich fancy, of philosophic 
 views ^vith poetic feeling, which realizes fully the pre- 
 cept of La Fontaine : " Que le Beau soit toujours 
 camarade du Bon." 
 
 ■j- We are assured by the Fourteenth Report of the 
 Board of Education, that a considerable improvement 
 has taken place in the Charter-schools; but the re- 
 membrance of their Catechism, and the occasional 
 stretching out of their old claws of proselytism, will 
 long make them too odious to be any thing but mis- 
 chievous. 
 
168 
 
 libertines," that, instead of endeavouring to 
 convert the Catholics, the reverend Ho- 
 nourables and Baronets who held the master- 
 ships of them, were chiefly employed in con- 
 verting the funds allowed for the schools, into 
 convenient and profitable sinecures for them- 
 selves. Some of these cases of embezzlement 
 were reported to the Government in the year 
 1796 ; but the only effect of the discovery was 
 to put a stop to an Act, then in progress, for 
 the improvement of the system of Public 
 Education — the persons detected in this 
 misappropriation of the public funds, being 
 of that privileged class, into whose pockets, 
 however filled, it has been at all times pro- 
 fanation to pry. Under the administration, 
 however, of the Duke of Bedford (who was 
 not equally inclined to subscribe to that first 
 of the thirty-nine articles of Irish Protest- 
 antism — Jobbing,) the enquiry was resumed, 
 and a Commission established, which has had 
 the singular felicity of being in some degree 
 useful*. 
 
 * The Fourteenth Report of the Commissioners is 
 full of good sense and liberaHty; and the letter of Mr. 
 
169 
 
 These Royal Free-schools are, it seems, en- 
 dowed with estates, to the extent of thirteen 
 thousand six hundred and twenty-seven acres; 
 and — so well had the Honourable and Rever- 
 end masters succeeded in appropriating the 
 chief benefit of the Fund to themselves — that, 
 according to the House of Commons' Re- 
 port, in 1809, out of the small number of 
 children educated in these schools altogether, 
 there were not above thirty who did not pay 
 as much for their education, as if the thirteen 
 thousand six hundred and twenty-seven acres 
 were wholly out of the question. 
 
 From the Report of last year upon the 
 state of these Schools, they appear to be at 
 present rather schools of litigation than of 
 learning — as their returns relate almost wholly 
 to the progress of their law-suits with their 
 tenants, which seem as numerous and as suc- 
 cessful as those of Sir Condy Rack-rent, 
 who " lost every one of his suits but seven- 
 teen." The Commissioners, however, tell us 
 consolingly, " we look forward to the period 
 
 Leslie Forster in the Appendix is entitled to the same 
 very rare character. 
 
 I 
 
170 
 
 when this Board shall be enabled to give its 
 undivided attention to the system of educa- 
 tion, without being embarrassed with sub- 
 jects of finance." 
 
 We now come to the share which the 
 Church has taken in the instruction of the 
 people. 
 
 Whatever motives the Government may 
 have had, for exhibiting Education always in 
 the shape of either a bug-bear or a job, it 
 might have been supposed that the Clergy, 
 at least, would wish to see a humanized 
 population around them; and that those Free 
 Schools — one of which every Diocese is by 
 an Act of Elizabeth bound to maintain at its 
 own expense — would have been cherished 
 with a care and liberality of contribution, even 
 beyond what the provisions of the statute 
 enjoin. 
 
 But, unluckily, from some occult cause 
 (for the Commissioners say it must not be at- 
 tributed to "the backwardness or inattention 
 of the Bishops or Clergy"), the contributions 
 of the Church to this truly sacred purpose 
 have been almost nothing. Indeed, such is 
 
171 
 
 the mysterious incapacity of contribution 
 under which they labour, and which might 
 tempt mahcious persons to suppose that the 
 " Nolo'* of an Irish bishop is reserved for 
 occasions of charity alone, that, at the time 
 when the Report which I have just cited was 
 made, the whole number of effective schools 
 in all the Dioceses together was only 13. — 
 And, lest even this should prove too heavy 
 " a tax upon the clergy," the Government 
 has, in pursuance of the recommendation of 
 these same Reporters, caused, in several in- 
 stances, two or more Dioceses to be formed 
 into one district, and appointed but one 
 School to be maintained by the entire Clergy 
 of the Dioceses so united. 
 
 Thus,— as in the instances of Raphoe, Kil- 
 more, and Clogher, which are by the new re- 
 gulation consolidated into one district — three 
 Bishops to one School is considered not 
 more than a fair and orthodox allowance; 
 and (though somewhat resembling, in its 
 division of labour, that scene of O'Keefe's, 
 where " four French porters enter carrying 
 a band-box,") is held to be an abundantly 
 
 I2 
 
172 
 
 adequate return from the Church to the Peo- 
 ple, for the two millions of acres, and the 
 tenth part of the produce of all the other 
 acres which it derives from them. 
 
 But even under this light labour, the 
 powers of the Bishops and Clergy seem to 
 have sunk. In the accounts of the Free 
 Diocesan Schools, laid before the House of 
 Commons last year, neither from the Arch- 
 bishoprics of Tuam and Armagh, nor from 
 several of the other Dioceses, have returns of 
 any School whatever been forwarded; and an 
 item or two of the account, as it stands, will 
 show how impenetrably closed the purses of 
 the Clergy are, even to the " Open, Sesame" 
 of the Law. 
 
 In the Diocese of Ardagh, the amount of 
 annual income for the maintenance of a 
 school is thus stated : — " twenty-seven 
 pounds, most difficult to collect, by reason of 
 the numbers liable to pay it ; part is never 
 paid." 
 
 In the Diocese of Elphin, the annual in- 
 come is stated to be fifty-five pounds, and 
 the fund from which it arises is thus describ- 
 
173 
 
 cd : — ■" An annuity by bequest, and a charge 
 on the Bishops and Clergy, some of the latter 
 in arrear, from non-payment of tithes, and 
 the pressure of the times." 
 
 In the rich Diocese of Derry, where the in- 
 come required for the school is near nine 
 hundred pounds, all that the Bishop and 
 Clergy can muster up among them towards 
 that sum is one hundred and ten pounds — the 
 remainder being contributed by the Irish 
 Society and London Companies. 
 
 In addition to this establishment of Dio- 
 cesan Schools which the law provides, and 
 which the Church thus frustrates, the paro- 
 chial Clergy are also, by the 28th of Hen. 
 VIII. charged with the instruction of the 
 poor ; and every incumbent appointed to a 
 living in Ireland, takes an oath to the fol- 
 lowing effect; — " I, A. B. do solemnly swear, 
 that I will teach or cause to be taught with- 
 in the said vicarage or rectory, one school 
 as the law requires." 
 
 Oaths, however, are just as inefficient as 
 Acts of Parliament. "No school — no scho- 
 lars" was the return made to the House of 
 
174 
 
 Commons last year from the great majority 
 of the parishes; and, even where parochial 
 schools do exist, they seem by these accounts 
 to be supported by every body and by any 
 body but the Clergy — who while they impute 
 to Catholics a laxity in the observance of 
 oaths, exhibit a well-bred indifference about 
 their own, which is, at least, equally edifying. 
 
 It must have been a consciousness of the 
 immoral influence of such an example, that in- 
 duced the Commissioners of Education, in 
 their Eleventh Report, to suggest that " it 
 might deserve consideration, w^h ether the 
 oath should continue to be administered, or 
 whether the Clergy ought not be relieved 
 from the obligation thus imposed upon them." 
 
 There is one mode, indeed, by which these 
 Reverend Gentlemen quiet their consciences, 
 which is too characteristic and amusing not 
 to be noticed. It seems that the sum required 
 as the annual contribution of the clergyman 
 to the parish school, was rated in the time of 
 Henry VIII. at forty shillings. Without any 
 regard, therefore, to the change which has 
 taken place in the value of Money since, they 
 
175 
 
 consider themselves perfectly acquitted of 
 their obh'gations, in devoting two pounds out 
 of their large incomes to the same important 
 purpose now; and we find, in numerous in- 
 stances, among the items of the fund from 
 which the school is maintained, " Two 
 pounds per annum paid by the rector." 
 
 Even from such a benefice as that of Mag- 
 hera, the certified value of which is one thou- 
 sand eight hundred and seventy-five pounds 
 per annum, the overflowings of clerical be- 
 nevolence do not exceed the antient modus 
 of forty shillings ; and the remainder of the 
 fund for the support of the school is made 
 up of donations from different institutions, 
 and the annual contributions of the scholars 
 themselves. 
 
 In the great majority of parishes, how- 
 ever, there are, as I have already remarked, 
 no Free-schools at all. In the Diocese of 
 Cloyne, in which there are fifty-eight bene- 
 fices, valued, according to an accurate re- 
 turn in 1809, at forty thousand pounds a year, 
 there are only twenty schools ; and the Arch- 
 bishopric of Tuam, in which there are twen- 
 
176 
 
 ty-four benefices, comprising eighty-nine pa- 
 rishes, has not been able to contribute to 
 the cause of education more than six schools. 
 In the mean time, the Incumbents of these 
 neglected parishes may be found at Bath and 
 Cheltenham, effacing the remembrance of 
 their oaths in those Lethean waters, and 
 whiling away the time in prospective dreams 
 of better benefices — like those souls on the 
 banks of the ancient Lethe, whom Virgil de- 
 scribes as waiting for the fresh bodies, into 
 which they were to be inducted, — 
 
 animjE, quibus altera fato 
 
 Corpora debentur, I-ethaei ad fliiminis undam 
 Secures latices et longa oblivia potant. 
 
 From all this, it will be seen, that if the 
 poor of Ireland had only the Government 
 and the Clergy to trust to for education, their 
 Ignorance would have been as complete as 
 even a philosopher like Mr. Bankes could 
 require — and the reader of the foregoing 
 statements will, I have no doubt, agree 
 with me, that never did Church and State, 
 those inseparable companions (so aptly com- 
 
177 
 
 pared to the twins of Heraclltus, that wept 
 and laughed, waked and slept, and performed 
 all the functions of life together, exhibit in 
 any other instance such a perfect co-operation 
 and sympathy, as in this one, uniform, and 
 consistent task of strengthening the interests 
 of the Rock family in Ireland, by benight- 
 ing, beggaring, and brutalizing the Irish 
 people, under every reign, and in every pos- 
 sible way, that their joint Excellencies, Re- 
 verences, and Graces could devise. 
 
 Within these few years, some charitable 
 and well-intentioned persons, observing how 
 ill our education prospered in the hands of 
 the Government and Clergy, have associated 
 themselves in various plans for our civiliza- 
 tion and improvement — and the consequence 
 is, I have, at this moment, arrayed against 
 me, the Kildare Street Society, the London 
 Hibernian Society, the Irish Society, and a 
 host of other minor Societies, all armed with 
 bibles, religious tracts, &c. determined to 
 put down the Rock interest, and to repair 
 the mischief so elaborately brought about by 
 our rulers, both lay and spiritual. 
 
 I 5 
 
178 
 
 To " unwind a wrong knit up so many 
 years," is no such easy matter ; and there is, 
 in some of the prominent features of this new 
 generation of Societies, a family resem- 
 blance to the old Charter-school system, 
 which prevents me from feeling any consi- 
 derable alarm as to their success. 
 
 As if we wanted any assistance in perpe- 
 tuating national differences, one of these So- 
 cieties has kindly taken the Irish language 
 under its protection ; and the old Milesian 
 vocabulary, which used to be hanging-mat- 
 ter some sixty years since, is now — as a pre- 
 paration, I presume, for the re-enactment of 
 the Penal Code — to be made a chief part of 
 our national education, and to " speed the 
 soft intercourse" of Rockism in future, under 
 the special patronage of "the Irish Society." 
 
 The " Kildare Street Society" is also, I 
 find, assisting my interests. Out of the public 
 funds, granted to this institution for the pur- 
 poses of education, the greatest portion, it 
 seems, finds its way to the favoured region of 
 Ulster, — that being (according to the usual 
 rule for appropriating money in Ireland) the 
 
179 
 
 part of the country where such assistance is 
 least wanted. By their own Report, indeed, 
 it appears that one northern county, Antrim, 
 has shared twice as much of their assistance 
 as the whole province of Connaught; and, 
 in conformity with this system, we find, out 
 of a list of one hundred and twenty-seven 
 schoolmasters appointed by them, no more 
 than forty-nine Catholics. 
 
 But the " London Hibernian Society" pro- 
 mises to be the most useful to me of any — 
 as the following specimens of their success 
 in proselytism, extracted from the Appendix 
 to their Report of last year, will prove. 
 
 In a letter from one of the travelling agents 
 employed by this body, we find the following 
 description of a little fourteen-year-old Pro- 
 testant, which he had just succeeded in 
 making : — " Her demeanour and conversa- 
 tion has gained the attention of her parents 
 to the word of God ,•* and although her dissent 
 from the prevailing religion has subjected her 
 to some obloquy and reproach^ she is generally 
 respected by her neighbours, and at an age 
 , little above fourteen^ is found the av&wed ad- 
 
180 
 
 vacate of Christianity in its scriptural character, 
 in opposition to the corrupt glosses and tra- 
 ditions of men." 
 
 It appears by the following extract, that 
 proselytes are sometimes promoted into 
 schoolmasters — in the hope, no doubt (from 
 a London estimate of the Irish character), 
 that such tame converts will act as decoys to 
 
 catch others: — "B , master of our school 
 
 in E , had some time since informed 
 
 me, that he found in the conversation of a 
 shoe-maker in that neighbourhood, much to 
 strengthen and animate him in his Christian 
 course, and that they were mutual supports to 
 each other, heneath the trials to which their 
 apostasy from popery exposed them^^ 
 
 We have afterwards a story, from one of 
 these agents, of a Catholic, who, in going 
 through some act of penance wath about 
 " fifty fellow-sinners," was suddenly struck 
 with the conviction, that " he was, in the ex- 
 ercise in which he was engaged, adding sin 
 to sin — idolatry to his other crimes." Be- 
 neath this impression, adds the agent, " he 
 sunk to the earth nor could proceed, when 
 
J81 
 
 as with the rapidity of lightning, a certain 
 text of scripture struck upon his recollection. 
 For some time he was motionless with de- 
 light and astonishment : believing, he re- 
 joiced with exceeding great joy : when re- 
 collecting the situation in which he was 
 placed, regarding its idolatry with abhor- 
 rence, he sprang off his knees and fled from 
 the chapel, never again to visit it or bow to a 
 priest." 
 
 Such are the inducements held out to Ca- 
 tholics, to be educated in the Schools of the 
 " London Hibernian Society." 
 
 The old Charter school plan of alienating 
 children from their parents, may be traced 
 pretty clearly in the following dialogue be- 
 tween one of the Inspectors of this Society, 
 and '^a little girl". "My dear," said I, 
 "Where did you find this text ?" " Indeed, 
 Sir, I have a good Testament, and can read 
 a bible." " Is 7/02cr father a Roman P" said I. 
 " Lideed, Sir, he is, and believes every thing 
 the Priest tells him," 
 
 Little children, as might be expected, act 
 a considerable part in these cases of conver- 
 
18£ 
 
 sion. " I will relate an instance," says one 
 of the Schoolmasters of the Society, "of a 
 child no more than six years old, who, on re- 
 ceiving a Testament this quarter, threw him- 
 self on his knees, and thanked God for the 
 gift he bestowed on him, through the means 
 of the Society." 
 
 If any further proof be wanting of the be- 
 nefits which these well-meaning persons are 
 likely to confer upon the Rock cause, one 
 more specimen will amply suffice: the convert 
 in this case is " a weaver by trade.'* " It is 
 manifest that God, who calleth men from 
 darkness to light, hath abundantly blessed 
 the reading of that precious gift to him. He 
 spends all his hours in reading that valuable 
 book ; which was the instrument of awaken- 
 ing him out of the deep sleep of sin. His 
 nearest friends are become his greatest enemies: 
 his wife and brother-in-law say that he is re- 
 ligiously madP 
 
83 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Education of the Captain. — Hedge Schools — Abduction 
 of a Schoolmaster. — Catalogue of a RoCK Library. 
 
 It may easily be supposed that my Father 
 was too good a Cathoh'c, to risk the ortho- 
 doxy of the young Rocks within the prose- 
 Ivtizintj vortex of a Charter School. Our 
 education, therefore, was imbibed in one of 
 those ancient seminaries, which, like the aca- 
 demies of the ancients, are held in the open 
 air, and which, from the sheltered situation 
 they occupy, are called Hedge Schools. 
 
 That particular Hedge School which had 
 the honour of educating me^ deserved rather, 
 perhaps, to be called a University — as the lit- 
 tle students, having first received their rudi- 
 ments in the ditch, were from thence pro- 
 moted, in due time, to graduate under the 
 hedge. 
 
 When I was between 13 and 14 years 
 
184. 
 
 of age, oiir old schoolmaster died; and 
 as I still continued, in those intervals of 
 leisure which my early initiation into my fa- 
 ther's calling allowed me, to avail myself of 
 the instruction of this worthy pedagogue, 
 his death was to me, as well as to all the other 
 little Rocks, a serious inconvenience. We 
 soon, however, contrived to fill up his place — 
 and by an expedient which, as it is charac- 
 teristic of national manners, 1 shall, in as 
 few words as possible, communicate to my 
 reader. 
 
 A few miles from our village, on the other 
 side of the river, there was a schoolmaster 
 of much renown, and some Latin, whose 
 pupils we had long envied for their posses- 
 sion of such an instructor, and still more since 
 we had been deprived of our own. At last, 
 upon consulting wdth my brother graduates 
 of the hedge, a bold measure was resolved 
 upon, which 1 had the honour of being ap- 
 pointed leader to carry into effect. 
 
 One fine moonlight night, crossing the 
 river in full force, we stole upon the slum- 
 
185 
 
 bers of the unsuspecting schoolmaster, and, 
 carrying him off in triumph from his discon- 
 solate disciples, placed him down in the same 
 cabin that had been occupied by the deceased 
 Abecedarian*. It is not to be supposed that 
 the transfluvian tyros submitted patiently to 
 this infringement of literary property — on 
 the contrary, the famous war for the rape of 
 Helen was but a skirmish to that which arose 
 on the enlevement of the schoolmaster; and, 
 after alternate victories and defeats on both 
 sides, the contest ended by leaving our party 
 
 * Lady Morgan mentions a similar circumstance in 
 her amusing " Sketches of Ireland." 
 
 By the following statement from the Accounts re- 
 lating to Education, laid before the House of Com- 
 mons last session, it appears that schools are some- 
 times stolen in Ireland, as well as schoolmasters. — 
 " There are two parish schools in the parish of Rath- 
 cool, one protestant, and the other papist. The pa- 
 pist schoolmaster obtained a licence thirty years ago 
 under pretence of being a protestant. By this ma- 
 noeuvre he got possession of the parish school-house 
 and its annexed glebe, and retains it in defiance of the 
 parish minister, and will yield to nothing but force. 
 His name is Daniel Brady." 
 
186 
 
 in peaceable possession of the pe/lagogue, 
 v/ho remained contentedly amongst us many 
 years, to the no small increase of Latin in 
 the neighbourhood. 
 
 Such, gentle reader, is the unceremonious 
 way, in which matters of love, law, and learn- 
 ing are settled among us. Whether the de- 
 sired object be cattle, young ladies, or school- 
 masters, Abduction is the process resorted to 
 most commonly. Our rulers having, through 
 a long series of centuries, by indiscriminate 
 confiscations, transportations, and execu- 
 tions, set us the example of a total disregard 
 to persons or property, we have followed in 
 their footsteps with a "desperate fidelity," — 
 and there is not, perhaps, in the history of 
 the world, another instance of a Government 
 and a People going on so long together, with 
 so little observance of law on either side. 
 
 It is, however, a great mistake to say that 
 the Irish are uneducated. There are many, 
 it is true, among us, who might exclaim, like 
 Skirmish, " If I had handled my pen as well 
 as I have handled my bottle, what a charming 
 hand I should have written by this time ! " — 
 
187 
 
 but there is no doubt that the faculty of 
 reading and writing is quite as much diffused 
 among the Irish as among the Enghsh pea- 
 santry. 
 
 The difference is not in the quantity, but 
 the quality, of our education. The Charter- 
 schools having done their utmost to sicken 
 us against Catechisms, and our own Priests 
 not suffering us to read the Bible*, we are 
 driven, between both, to select a course of 
 study for ourselves ; and the line of reading 
 most usually adopted is as follows : — 
 In History, — Annals of Irish Rogues and 
 
 Rapparees. 
 In Biography, — Memoirs of Jack the Batch- 
 
 elor, a notorious smuggler, and of Fre- 
 
 ney, a celebrated highwayman. 
 In Theology, — Pastorini's Prophecies, and 
 
 the Miracles of Prince Hohenloe. 
 
 * The arguments of the Roman Catholic Clergy 
 against the use of the Bible, as a class-book, are well- 
 founded ; but the length to which some of them carry 
 theu- objections to a free and general perusal of the 
 Scriptures, is inconsistent with the spirit, as well of 
 Civil as of Religious liberty. 
 
188 
 
 In Poetry, — Ovid's Art of Love, and Paddy's 
 
 Resource. 
 In Romance-reading, — Don Belianis of 
 
 Greece, Moll Flanders, &c. &c. 
 such bein<T the leading works in that 
 choice Catalogue, from which, according to 
 the taste of the parties, is selected the chief 
 reading of the Cottagers of Ireland. 
 
 So educated*, and so governed, is it won- 
 derful that the Rock Family should flou- 
 rish ? 
 
 * Sir John Newport, with whom originated the 
 former Board of Education, has just gained another of 
 those triumphs, which the country owes to his honest 
 zeal, by inducing the Ministers to consent to a new 
 Commission for the same important purpose. 
 
 EDITOR. 
 
189 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The CaptairCs opinions on Tithe matters. — Testimonies 
 in favour of Tithes from the Old Testament. — From 
 the Heathens. — From the Gospel. — From the Fathers. 
 ^Civil Right to Tithes: 
 
 As Ecclesiastical matters very early attract- 
 ed my attention, and have formed a consider- 
 able part of the business and glory of my 
 existence, I shall not, I trust, be thought to 
 digress unseasonably, in devoting a few pages 
 to the interesting and lively subject of Tithes. 
 In the practical part of Tithe affairs, I am 
 (thanks to my Reverend antagonists, and the 
 helium sacrum that has been so long waged 
 between us) tolerably conversant. But I 
 have also, during those intervals of learned 
 leisure, which a compulsory residence in 
 some of his Majesty's strong places has af- 
 forded me, made researches into the history 
 and antiquities of Tithes — with a few of the 
 
190 
 
 results of which I shall, as briefly as possible, 
 acquaint the reader. 
 
 By most of those writers who have argued 
 for theDivine Right of Tithes, the quarrel be- " 
 tween Cain and Abel is considered to be the 
 first Tithe-case upon record — so that blood- 
 shed appears to have been an ingredient in 
 the transaction from the very first. 
 
 In a Penitential written for the direction 
 of Priests in Confession, about the time of 
 Henry VI., the Priest, in his advice " upon 
 the point of Tithing," thus refers to this pre- 
 cedent: — "Afterward, Adam had two sonnes, 
 Caine and Abell. Abell tithed truly, and of 
 the best; Caine tithed falsely, and of the worst. 
 At last, the fals tither Cayn slough Abell, his 
 brother ; for he blamyd him, and seyed that 
 he tithed evil. And wherefore our Lord God 
 accursed Cayn, and all the erth in his work. 
 So ye now see that fals tything was the cause 
 of the first manslaughter that ever was." 
 
 Other Reverend antiquarians have gone 
 still higher, and assert that Adam himself 
 was the first tithe-payer. In mentioning this 
 wise opinion two hundred years ago, Selden 
 
191 
 
 said, " I think that in the time of this liglrt 
 of learning, none have durst venture their 
 credits upon such fancies." But, if Selden 
 had lived in the beginning of the nineteenth 
 century, he would have found a much more 
 adventurous spirit of absurdity ; and in an 
 " Essay on the Revenues of the Church of 
 England, &c. by the Reverend Morgan Cove, 
 D.C.L. Prebendary of Hereford, and Rec- 
 tor of Eaton Bishop," he v^^ould have read 
 the following passage : — " Nor does there 
 remain any other method of solving the dif- 
 ficulty, but by assigning the origin of the 
 custom (of Tithes), and the peculiar obsei'v- 
 ance of it, to some unrecorded revelation made 
 to Adam, and by him and his descendants 
 delivered down to posterity." 
 
 It has been asked, to what parish church 
 Adam paid his tithes? but the Reverend Mr. 
 Cove has not yet returned an answer. 
 
 In general, however, the Tenths paid to 
 the Levites are the scriptural precedent upon 
 which a claim to Tithes is founded, — in other 
 words, a ceremonial of the Jewish Law, which, 
 together vv'ith the other ceremonials of that 
 
192 
 
 Law, was set aside by the Gospel, and which 
 the Jews themselves no longer practise, is 
 considered by a Christian Priesthood good 
 and sufficient authority, for taking a tenth 
 part of the produce of all England and 
 Ireland unto themselves. If the early Fathers 
 may be accused of Judaizing, what shall we 
 say to this more modern Levitism ? 
 
 Let it be remembered, too, that, though the 
 Jewish ordinance enjoined the payment of 
 Tithes to the tribe of Levi, "joithin the land of 
 Canaan only, these Reverend antiquarians 
 do not at all the less gravely quote it, as ap- 
 plicable to their own peculiar parishes and 
 purposes — and some P^everend Mr. O' Fla- 
 herty (who is not of the tribe of Levi), and 
 who dwells in Ballynakilty, which is 7Wt 
 the land of Canaan,) may yet, perhaps, at 
 this moment, be quoting Leviticus and Deu- 
 teronomy, to prove to the Ballynakiltians 
 his sacred right, to the tenth ridge of every 
 miserable potatoe-crop within his reach. 
 
 If authorities from the Old Testament are 
 to be cited, the best prototype of Tithe-takers 
 (at least, of Irish Tithe-takers) is to be found 
 
among those sons of Eli, in Samuel, who 
 struck their flesh-hooks into the pots and 
 pans of the people, and " all that the flesh- 
 hook brought up, the Priest took for him- 
 self," — who said, " thou shalt give it me 
 now, and if not, I will take it by force ;" and 
 who at last, by their rapacity, brought these 
 priestly dues into such disrepute, that "men 
 abhorred the offerings of the Lord." — 1 Sa- 
 muel, ii. 14. 
 
 Not content with Jewish authorities, the 
 Reverend writers in defence of Tithes have 
 condescended to call in even Pagans to their 
 assistance; and inform us, with much com- 
 placency, that not only the Greeks and Ro- 
 mans, but the Arabians, Ethiopians, Phoe- 
 nicians, &c. were all most strict and exem- 
 plary tithe-payers. 
 
 Hercules, it appears, was a considerable 
 receiver of Tenths ; and if he was also his 
 own Collector, practised as I am in skirmishes 
 with Proctors, I should hesitate, I own, be- 
 fore I encountered so formidable a Tithe- 
 gatherer. 
 
 The story of Cacus, stealing away the flocks 
 
 K 
 
194 
 
 of Hercules*, is, no doubt, an allegory, pro- 
 phetic of the loss which the Irish Clergy sus- 
 tained, in having the Tithe of agistment of 
 Cattle taken from them by the Irish Parlia- 
 ment. The character, indeed, given of Ca- 
 cus by Virgil, represents the Parliament of 
 that penal period, to the very life — 
 
 At furiis Caci mens effera, ne quid inausum, 
 Aut intractatum sceleris dolive fuisset. 
 
 The circumstance, too, of Cacus pulling 
 the cattle by the tail may possibly allude to 
 the method of ploughing by the tail, so long 
 practised in Ireland: — 
 
 Aversos cauda traxit in antra boves ; 
 but this I throw out merely as a suggestion. 
 
 We are next presented, by these classical 
 clergymen, with an association between Poets 
 
 * According to some accounts (Halicarnass. Vufi. 
 A^X'^toX, a.) Hercules himself first spent the Tenth of 
 what he took from Cacus, in a jolly feast with Evander 
 and his companions — from whence (says Dionysius) 
 originated the offering of Tithes at the altar which they 
 raised to him. 
 
 This jolly method of spending the Tithes is still pre- 
 served in Ireland most classically. 
 
195 
 
 and Tithe-holders, which is as unexpected as 
 it is edifying. From the lucubrations of the 
 Reverend Mr. Cove and othei's, it appears 
 that Apollo, also, was so much in the receipt 
 of this kind of dues, that one of the epithets 
 by which he was distinguished was ^F.Ha,Tr,^o^o;, 
 the Tithe-bearing, — or, as Selden more fan- 
 cifully renders it, " crowned with Tithes" *. 
 This, no doubt, is the secret of that in- 
 spiration, which has made the Church so fer- 
 tile in good poets at the present day — and, if 
 the Tithe-crowned Apollo could always boast 
 such votaries as Crabbe, Bowles, Crowe, 
 Milman, and Croley, even Captain Rock 
 
 * The famous courtezan, Rhodopis, used to send 
 annually the tithe of her earnings to Delphi ; where, 
 doubtless, the venerable priests of the temple^defended 
 the sacredness of the due with all proper spirit — pro- 
 nouncing every man an atheist, who dared to question 
 or even smile at it. 
 
 This singular sort of Tithe was not confined to 
 Heathen Church establishments, but, like all other 
 profitable practices, found its way also into the Chris- 
 tian church. " Some Canonists," says Hume, " went 
 so far as to affirm that the Clergy were entitled to the 
 tenth of the profits made by Courtezans." 
 
 k2 
 
196 
 
 would bow the knee to him in homage, and 
 acknowledge his Tenth Muse to be worth 
 almost all the other Nine. 
 
 When we add to the above classical exam- 
 ples of Tithing, that of the Tenth allotted by 
 Juno to the Priests of C}?bele, for the trou- 
 ble they took in teaching Mars to dance, we 
 shall have done full justice to the argument 
 in favour of Tithes, derived by Church Di- 
 vines from the religious institutions of the 
 Heathens. 
 
 We come now to the Gospel authorities 
 for this practice — and here, at least, we might 
 expect to find its Reverend advocates, armed 
 with such texts in support of their claim, as 
 would at once reduce us to reverential si- 
 lence; and justify the assertion of Archdea- 
 con Coxe in a late pamphlet, that Tithes 
 " are derived from such a high and sacred 
 source, as no believer in revelation can speak 
 of without respect." 
 
 But, no — on the contrary, all here is si- 
 lent. Neither from the lips of the Divine 
 Founder of Christianity himself, nor from 
 the pen of any of his disciples has there fallen 
 
197 
 
 a single precept, enjoining the payment of 
 Tithe to any class of priesthood whatever. 
 Out of this sacred region, therefore, I may 
 hurry without another word — happy to find 
 it unmarked by a single foot-print of the 
 Tithe-gatherer, and only regretting that my 
 Reverend antagonists should, by seeking au- 
 thority for their worldly-mindedness in such 
 sources, make it necessary for unhallowed 
 feet like mine, to follow them so near the 
 confines of all that should be most holy and 
 unapproachable. 
 
 In the same manner, though not with the 
 same reverential feelings, I shall pass over 
 the testimonies to Tithing cited from the 
 Fathers — those convenient authorities, whose 
 folios have always served as a sort of spare 
 bolsters to Theology, to be placed wherever 
 an occasional support was wanting, and then 
 thrown aside when the purpose was served. 
 Thus, for instance, if Origen, in the simplici- 
 ty of his benevolence, refuses to believe in the 
 doctrine of eternal punishment, he is instant- 
 ly and indignantly pronounced a heretic, a 
 blasphemer, and even disseised of his Saint- 
 
198 
 
 ship for a notion so abominably charitable. 
 But, if the same Origen should recommend, 
 (as he does in one of his Homilies) that First- 
 fruits and Tenths should be duly paid, he is 
 then the very "top of judgment," and is 
 quoted by Archdeacon Coxe and brethren, 
 with all the reverence which an opinion so 
 clerical and orthodox demands. 
 
 The brief sum, however, of this part of the 
 History of Tithes is as follows. It was not till 
 the fourth Century that this mode of pro- 
 viding for the Clergy was introduced into the 
 Church; and, even then, the Priest was en- 
 titled but to a third part of the Tenths, the re- 
 maining two portions being appropriated to 
 the repair of Churches and relief of the Poor. 
 In the course of time, however, the Priest 
 contrived to monopolize all to himself*, and 
 from that moment the struggle between the 
 
 * About the year 1200, we find Pope Innocent III. 
 complaining bitterly of those who were so ungodly, as 
 to pay their Tenths away from the Church to the Poor. 
 " Graviter ergo peccant," says his Holiness, " qui de- 
 cimas et primitias non reddunt sacerdotibus, sed eas 
 pro voluntate sua distribuunt indigentibus." — Selden, 
 
199 
 
 Laity and the Clergy began — the former pay- 
 ing reluctantly, or not at all, and the latter 
 cursing them with all the flowers of Church 
 eloquence, in consequence. 
 
 The following specimen of the style of ma- 
 lediction used on those occasions, will serve 
 to show what a kindly feeling this Jewish 
 custom was the means of introducing into the 
 Christian Church: — " Si quis autem hsec om- 
 nia non decimaverit, praedo Dei est, et fur 
 et latro, et maledicta qu^ intulit Dominus 
 (tu) Cain non recte dividenti congeruntur." 
 
 Not only disputes, but bloodshed followed 
 in the wake of this new Tithing system — and 
 the Danes put their king. Knout the Fourth, 
 to death, for no other cause, than having at- 
 tempted to impose it upon them *. 
 
 * It is not improbable that the Danes gave my an- 
 cestors some lessons when they were in Ireland — as the 
 Danish mode of dealing with Tithe-owners resembles 
 our own treatment of Proctors most closely. Under King 
 Waldemar the First, when the Clergy threatened to dis- 
 continue their functions, unless Tithes were paid more 
 regularly than heretofore, the People answered that 
 they must either do their duty, or quit the country ; 
 otherwise (in the true Rock style), " non solum rerum 
 
200 
 
 Let us now see whether the Civil Right, 
 on which the Clergy rest their claim to 
 Tithes, is bottomed on grounds more tenable 
 or respectable. 
 
 The most antient law concerning this right 
 in England was made by OfFa, King of Mer- 
 cia — who, having murdered under his own 
 roof, Ethelbert, King of the East Angles, who 
 had come to sue for his daughter in mar- 
 riage, invested the Church, by way of atoning 
 for this bloody violation of hospitality, with 
 a legal property and inheritance in Tithes. 
 
 Such is the origin to which the Clergy 
 themselves refer for the first establishment of 
 Tithes as a Civil right in England — and it is 
 thought by them, at this day, a sufficient 
 reason, for taking a fifth or fourth of the 
 rental of all England, that king OfFa, in the 
 year 753, could not sleep easy in his bed, 
 without making a present of the Tenth part 
 of his domains to the Clergy. 
 
 He was followed by another pious patron 
 of the Church, King Ethelwolf — who, being 
 
 amissionem, sed membrorum etiam truncationem de-» 
 morarentur." 
 
201 
 
 alarmed by threats of fresh invasion from the 
 Danes, consulted his Clergy as to the most 
 efficacious mode of propitiating heaven and 
 averting the calamity. The Clergy recom- 
 mended Tithes, as a specific in all such cases; 
 and King Ethelwolf, improving on the piety 
 of OfFa, vi^ho had given them but a Tenth of 
 his own domains, made over to them that 
 proportion of the produce of the whole king- 
 dom — by the blessing of which donation, as 
 well as of three hundred marks annually to 
 the Pope, for the purchase of oil for the lamps 
 at St. Peter's and St. Paul's, he got rid of his 
 Royal panic about the Danes, found Tithes, 
 as he says in his Charter, " beneficial to the 
 health of his soul"*, and, like Swift's gene- 
 
 * The same generous motives are professed by King 
 Stephen, in his confirmation of these Grants. — " For 
 the salvation of my own soul, and the souls of my fa- 
 ther and mother, and all my forefathers and ancestors, 
 &c." In like manner, in the year 852, "Raginer, Duke 
 of Lorraine," says Selden, " gave a whole town away 
 to the Abbey of Vito in Verdun, with the appurte. 
 nances and all the Tithes of the Land, for the health 
 of his own soul, and the souls of his wife, children, and 
 parents," Most expensive, to be sure, were the souls 
 
 K 5 
 
202 
 
 rous country-gentleman, who, 
 
 out of his great bounty. 
 Built a bridge at the expense of the County, 
 
 saddled posterity with the payment of his 
 " soul's health" for ever. 
 
 " Thus" says the Reverend Mr. Cove tri- 
 umphantly, " were the Saxon Clergy en- 
 dowed* with a legal, hereditary, and perma- 
 
 of Kings and Dukes in those times. But why, in the 
 name of common 'sense, should England be the only 
 country that continues paying for them still ? 
 
 * The author of the Article on Ecclesiastical Reve- 
 nues, in the last Quarterly, No. 50, well aware that this 
 alleged origin of the right of tithes, is, though suffi- 
 ciently royal, not very reputable, has endeavoured to 
 get rid of the two Saxon monarchs altogether — and pre- 
 fers seeking the source of all Ecclesiastical property in 
 certain grants of private individuals, which, he yet ac- 
 knowledges, " it is impossible to prove by any existing 
 documents." It would have been wiser, like Dr. Cove, 
 to hold fast by Offa and Ethelwolf. Besides, the ob- 
 jection to a right of bequeathing away the results of 
 future labour, skill, expenses, &c. lies, in principle, as 
 strongly against the private individual as against the 
 monarch. "If Tithes," says an honest Quaker, who 
 has written very sensibly on the subject, "be the Tenth 
 of the Profit or Increase of the Land, and they that 
 
203 
 
 nent right and property in Tithes, by which 
 their successors have ever since holden them, 
 and by which they are as fully entitled to 
 and possessed of their tenth parts, as all pro- 
 prietors of lands are of the other nine." 
 That is to say, King Ethelwolf gave to the 
 Church — 7iot the Tenth part of any actual es- 
 tates or possessions, for here lies the fallacy 
 under which Tithes are represented as Pro- 
 perty* — but the Tenth part of what King 
 
 settled Tithes were actually seised of them in Law, then 
 surely they could settle no more than they were ac- 
 tually seised of, and they could be actually seised of 
 no other profits or increase, than what did grow, in- 
 crease, or renew upon the land while they were ac- 
 tually seised of it. So that such settlement, how valid 
 soever while they lived, must expire with them." 
 
 * It is amusing to observe how the word Propertyy 
 as applied to tithes, eludes the grasp of definition. 
 " This property," say some of the Reverend claimants, 
 " doth not belong to either the Person or the Office 
 apart, but the Property belongs to the Person as qua- 
 lified by holy orders, and put into actual possession by 
 institution or induction." To this Ellwood, the quaker 
 already quoted, answers : — " If the property doth not 
 belong to either the Person or the Office apart, what 
 becomes of the property when they are parted ? where 
 
204 
 
 Ethelvvolf did not then possess, and there- 
 fore could not grant away, namel}', all future 
 profits and increase upon lands, arising from 
 the labour and skill of husbandmen yet un- 
 born * — or, in other words, a mortgage with- 
 
 resteth the property when the office is void ? Doth 
 the property cease ? They had best have a care of" 
 that, for that will shrewdly endanger their title." 
 
 In a late Manifesto of the Irish Church, entitled 
 « The Case of the Church of Ireland stated," the dif- 
 ficulty is got rid of by considering every individual 
 Parson as a Corporation in himself. " Besides aggre- 
 gate corporations, there are others called sole, as con- 
 sisting at a given time of a single individual. By the 
 act of incorporation, these legal persons, like the for- 
 mer, are exempted from mortality, and invested with 
 rights as perpetual as their existence. Such is the 
 King, who, to the Constitution never dies. Such too 
 is the Parson of every Parish." 
 
 The King and the Parson ! —The vast " importance 
 of a man to himself," so happily illustrated in " the Me- 
 moirs of P. P. Parish Clerk," is also strikingly exem- 
 plified in every page of this Reverend Champion. 
 
 * "A perpetual grant of Tithes implies a grant 
 not only of other men's stocks, in w hich the granters 
 had no property, but of other men's labour, skill, di- 
 ligence, and industry also, long before they were be- 
 gotten ; upon which supposition all men but Priests» 
 
205 
 
 out equity of redemption, upon the industry 
 of all future English farmers, for ever. This 
 too, because King Ethelwolf was in a fright 
 about the Danes, and thoiight the only 
 chance of safety, for either his soul or his 
 body, lay in filling the pockets of the Priests 
 of England with money, and the lamps at St. 
 Peter's at Rome with oil. 
 
 My Reverend opponents answer (in the 
 same spirit with which a Priest of Delphi 
 would have defended the Tithe of the fair 
 courtezan, Rhodopis) that it matters not 
 what were the character or motives of the 
 donor — that the grant has been made, and 
 a right thereby instituted, which, whatever 
 may be the consequences, '' ruat coelum," 
 cannot be recalled. Where, then, are all the 
 other wise grants and imposts of that en- 
 lightened period — the Peter's- pence, the 
 Church-scot, the rich endowments of monas- 
 
 since Ethelwolf 's time, must be born slaves, under an 
 obligation to employ their time, pains, industry and 
 skill in working for the Priests." — Ellwood, Founda- 
 tion of Tithes shaken. 
 
206 
 
 leries and churches, most of them bestowed 
 for the same laudable purposes, namely, the 
 heahh of such souls as OfFa's and Ethelwolf's? 
 where is all this sacred property now? where 
 all the charters, deeds, seals, &c. by which 
 it was ratified ? Gone to the moon — to 
 that repository of things lost on earth, where 
 Astolpho found the Deed of Gift from Pope 
 Silvester to Constantine, and where I see no 
 earthly or heavenly reasons why the Charters 
 of OiFa and Etbelwolf should not join them. 
 In fact, till the time of Henry VIII. there 
 was no effective statute law, to enforce the 
 payment of Tithes in England. The Church 
 had, it is true, for centuries before, brought 
 into play the whole battery of decrees, canons 
 and curses, for the purpose of establishing a 
 right to these dues; but the people had never, 
 either by themselves or their representatives, 
 consented to such an encroachment on their 
 property*. The exaction of Tithes, there- 
 
 * See " Reply to Archdeacon Coxe on the subject 
 of Tithe Commutation by John Benett,Esq. M.P."— 
 a pamphlet, which shows how easily an intelligent coua- 
 
207 
 
 fore, under the authorityof Papal decrees, was 
 in no respect different from the rest of those 
 pious robberies, which his Holiness, the Pope, 
 was in the habit of committing on all the 
 high- ways of Europe. It is singular enough, 
 too, that Reformed England should now be 
 almost the only country in the world, where 
 this truly Papal impost is still retained. 
 " Apud Anglos (says Gesner) hodie dispu- 
 tatur adhuc an Decimae sint res juris divini. 
 Nostri Principes in Germania sunt sapien- 
 tiores; illi abrogarunt eas." 
 
 To the Acts, therefore, of the 2Tth and 
 S2nd years of Henry VIII. the Clergy can 
 alone refer for a le^al ri^ht to Tithes — and to 
 all the sacredness which the Laws of Henry 
 VIII. can confer on their claims, they are 
 fully entitled. 
 
 But the sweeping alienation into lay lands, 
 not only of Tithes, but of all other sorts of 
 Ecclesiastical property, both under this mo- 
 
 try-gentleman may foil even an Archdeacon at his own 
 weapons, and assert the supremacy of good-sense over 
 the vain pretensions of learning. 
 
208 
 
 narch in England * and James VI. in Scot- 
 land — and the confirmation by Charles I. in 
 the latter kingdom, of the titles of those 
 Barons, who had plundered the " Spiritu- 
 ality" of the Church, sufficiently show how 
 little sacred, in any sense of the word, this 
 species of property has been held even by 
 those, to whom the Clergy look up as their 
 Supreme Heads. 
 
 The Ecclesiastics of Scotland, previous to 
 the Reformation, engrossed, in one form or 
 another, half the landed property of the 
 country, and their Tithes alone are said to 
 have amounted to one fourth of the rents 
 of the whole kingdom. Yet, now, so little 
 scruple has there been in getting rid of this 
 obnoxious burden, that thev no longer exist 
 in Scotland, as a contribution of the produce 
 
 * "In the Act of 32 Henry VIII," says Antony 
 Pearson, " Tithes are called Spiritual Gifts ; and there, 
 of impropriate Tithes, sold after the Dissolution, it is 
 said they are now made Temporal ; and, before that 
 time it was never heard that tithes were called a Tem- 
 poral Right."— Great Case of Tithes. 
 
209 
 
 of the land; but, assuming the form of a fixed 
 rent, leave the farmer his whole crop to 
 manage as he likes, and the minister his 
 whole time to devote to works of peace and 
 usefulness — no fear of severance to interrupt 
 the labours of the one, nor any decimal calcu- 
 lations to disturb the devotions of the other. 
 
 I have thus hastily, but to myself satisfac- 
 torily, exposed, the futility of those claims 
 as well divine as civil, which mv Reverend 
 Antagonists set up to an inviolable property 
 in Tithes. I shall, in a future Chapter, lay 
 open some of the machinery of the Tithing 
 system — particularly as brought into opera- 
 tion in Ireland, and as connected with the 
 interests and prosperity of my own family 
 there. 
 
 Like a physician, who writes a treatise 
 upon the diseases by which he lives, without 
 any fear of losing practice by his exposure 
 of its diagnostics, I shall freely point out 
 all the ravages of this Ecclesiastical malady, 
 without much dread of being superseded in 
 my manner of treating it, or of being doomed 
 to idleness by any radical removal of the 
 
210 
 
 complaint. The perusal of Mr. Haslam's 
 Work on Insanity, has never, that I know of, 
 prevented any gentleman, so disposed, from 
 going mad ; and I shall not be surprised to 
 hear of Mr. Wetherell, rising from the pe- 
 rusal of this very Chapter of mine, to state 
 gravely in the House of Commons, that 
 *' Tithes are a sacred vinculum between the 
 Clergyman and his parishioners, and possess 
 a certain noli me tangere quality about them, 
 which makes it necessary to leave them in 
 statu quo, and go on paying them in scecula 
 scsculorum"*, 
 
 * A faint imitation of this gentleman's learned style 
 of speaking. May I venture to recommend for his pe- 
 rusal the Diatribse of Bishop Montague on Tithes, 
 where he will find specimens of this tesselated style, al- 
 most equalling his own ? For instance : — " Scilicet, you 
 are gallincs fiUus alhcs in your own opinion. But hcec 
 erat ilia Helena, good master Selden, not as you mis- 
 take the matter." 
 
211 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 1763.— 1778. 
 
 Political State of Ireland during the early part of the 
 Captain^ Life. — Dr. Lucas. — Undertakers. — Admi- 
 nistration of Lord Townsend, Lord Harcourt^ Sfc. — 
 Corruption. — The "Catholic Enemy. ^^ — Jews. — Con- 
 verts. 
 
 For about fifty years after the Revolution, 
 there was in the Politics of Ireland no Irish 
 Party. Our Parliament was but a sort of 
 Chapel of Ease to that in Westminster. Irish 
 pensions, Irish peerages, and even Irish pa- 
 triotism were all exclusively in the hands of 
 Englishmen, or the sons of Englishmen — 
 and, though now and then their delibera- 
 tions affected to be patriotic and national, 
 the country itself had as little to do with the 
 matter, as a corpse has with the inquest the 
 coroner holds over it. 
 
 Even the patriotism of Swift, as I have al- 
 ready remarked, might have come under his 
 own interdict, as an imported article ; and, 
 
212 
 
 useful and honorable as his genius has been 
 to Ireland, that happy illustration of the ma- 
 chinery of most human motives, ^'une roue 
 de aiivrefait tourner une aiguille dJor^^ niay, 
 without much injustice, be applied to those 
 of Swift — as English discontent was, after all, 
 the " roue de cuivre" that put the " aiguille 
 d'or" of his patriotism in motion. 
 
 It was not till about the period of Lord 
 Harrington's administration (1747-9)j that 
 the English in Ireland began to be, as Burke 
 says, "domiciliated," and to feel that they 
 had a country — and it is in the writings of 
 that indefatigable Tribune, Dr. Lucas, that 
 the first dawnings of a national and Irish feel- 
 ing are to be found. No longer circumscribing 
 the Spirit of Patriotism within the wizard cir- 
 cle of the " Protestant Interest," he was the 
 first member of the Parliament of Ireland, 
 that dared to extend his sympathies beyond 
 the little colony around him, to the great 
 mass of the Irish nation; — and there is one 
 of his Addresses, in which, putting aside, 
 boldly and entirely, the eternal scapegoat of 
 Popery, he arraigris the whole conduct of 
 
213 
 
 England towards Ireland, and declares that 
 " the Mexicans were never used worse by the 
 barbarous Spaniards, than the poor Irish 
 had been for centuries by the English." 
 
 The duration of our Parliaments had been, 
 till this time, for the whole life of the King — 
 so that the Parliament, which the death of 
 George II. dissolved, had been in existence 
 thirty-two years ! — and it v/as by the exer- 
 tions of Lucas, that they were at length, in 
 the year 1 767, limited to the period of eight 
 years. But still their dependency on the 
 will of England was so absolute, and all 
 power of originating Bills, — even Money- 
 Bills — was so completely taken away from 
 them, that their deliberations and decisions, 
 except for purposes of corruption, were mere 
 acting and child's play. 
 
 In this shackled state our Parliament re- 
 mained till 1782, — and, among the farces on 
 a grand scale which have been played off be- 
 fore the world, the Debates of such a House 
 of Commons, in the leading-strings of the 
 English Attorney-General, could not have 
 been the most unamusing to an indifferent 
 
214 
 
 spectator. The solemn proposal by some pa- 
 triot member, of a Bill previously submitted 
 to the censure of the Privy Council — the ap-. 
 peals to liberty and the Constitution on both 
 sides — the animation ofthe opposition bench- 
 es — the agitation of the galleries — and, all 
 this time, a perfect consciousness every 
 where, that the Attorney-General of England 
 could, with a dash of his pen, reverse, alter, 
 or entirely do away the matured result of all 
 the eloquence, and all the abilities of this 
 whole assembly* ! 
 
 With a Parliament so constituted, corrup- 
 tion would seem hardly necessary; but the in- 
 fluence of the Undertakers (as three or four 
 great families-j- were called) had become, at 
 length, so enormous, and so embarrassing to 
 the Government, that it was found necessary 
 to break it down by every mode of seduction 
 
 * See Young's Tour. 
 
 -j- The Shannons, Leinsters, Ponsonbys, &c. — so 
 called from their undertaking, under every successive 
 Lord-Lieutenant, on certain terms for themselves and 
 their followers, to "do the King's business" (as the 
 phrase was) in the House. 
 
215 
 
 and bribery, that intrigue and a Pension-list, 
 expansible ad iiifinitum*, could supply. 
 
 In Swift's time, " burgundy, kind words, 
 and closetting" was the recipe for bringing 
 over refractory country-gentlemen ; but some- 
 thing more substantial was requisite now — 
 and Lord Townsend, under whom the expe- 
 riment was first triedf, found the decompo- 
 sition of these parliamentary clans, a process 
 
 * " The pensions then charged upon the civil estab- 
 lishment, amounted to seventy-two thousand pounds 
 per annum. The private revenue of the crown, which 
 the law left at its discretionary disposal, did not at the 
 same time exceed seven thousand per annum, so that 
 the pensions exceeded the fund which could at all be 
 charged with them by sixty-five thousand per annum." 
 Plowden. 
 
 f " By his diverting the channel of court favour, 
 or rather dividing it into a multitude of little streams, 
 the gentlemen of the House of Commons were taught 
 to look up to him, not only as the source, but the dis- 
 penser of every gratification. Not even a commission 
 in the Revenue could be disposed of without his appro- 
 bation. Thus were the old Undertakers given to un- 
 derstand that there was another way of doing business 
 than through them." — Campbell's Philosoph. Survey. 
 
216 
 
 not less costly than it was invidious and ha- 
 zardous. He seems, however, to have suc- 
 ceeded — particularly with the patriots ; and 
 the names of Loftus, Beresford, &c. among 
 the apostates of that period, show the found- 
 ations upon which Tory titles and fortunes 
 are sometimes constructed. 
 
 Under a subsequent administration (Lord 
 Harcourt's) so little did Court influence 
 mask its operations, that, for the purpose of 
 recruiting the Treasury bench against the 
 meeting of Parliament, five Earls, seven 
 Viscounts, and eighteen Barons were all 
 made in one day. 
 
 This system of government was all but a 
 long rehearsal for the Union — that last grand 
 bouquet of the fcux d* artifice of Corruption. 
 But though even thus soon did that " com- 
 ing event cast its shadow before," the slight- 
 est hint of such a measure was received with 
 universal indignation. The people prefer- 
 red, of the two, a bad Parliament to none at 
 all — and the event has shown that they were 
 right. Like Harlequin decapitated, " though 
 
217 
 
 his head was no great ornament to him when 
 on, you cannot imagine how awkward he 
 looks without it." 
 
 All this time the Catholic " Enemy" (as 
 the laws called their own manufacture) went 
 on increasing in silence and in darkness, like 
 that fire which some French philosophers 
 suppose to exist at the centre of the earth, 
 — working its way upward in secret, till it 
 will at last make the surface too hot to 
 hold us. So little were they attended to, ex- 
 cept for purposes of persecution, that, in a 
 case where one of their body was tried for 
 having given refuge to a young lady, whom 
 some Protestant converters were laying siege 
 to rather violently, it was stated gravely from 
 the bench that " the laws did not presume a 
 Papist to exist in the kingdom, nor could 
 they breathe without the connivance of Go- 
 vernment." This is one of those sublime and 
 daring fictions, in which Law leaves Poetry 
 so very far behind it — two or three millions of 
 souls " not supposed to exist" — five-sixths of 
 a people alive only by courtesy ! 
 
 It seemed, indeed, as if these wise legis- 
 
218 
 
 lators had really succeeded in persuading 
 themselves, that Catholics not only went for 
 cyphers in the census of a population, but, 
 like the devils in Milton's Pandemonium, 
 took no room. For, while in every direction 
 this enslaved race was multiplying (contrary 
 to the noble example of the elephant, which 
 refuses to propagate its race in bondage), we 
 find the Parliament in such fear of a defi- 
 ciency of population, as to encourage the im- 
 portation of Palatines, Hugonots, and even 
 Jews, by every inducement that not only full 
 toleration, but the most lavish grant of pri- 
 vileges could furnish. 
 
 This notable and pious plan for strength- 
 ening the Protestant Interest by a plentiful 
 infusion of Jewish blood, was first suggested in 
 the year 1747, when a Bill for " naturalizing 
 persons professing the Jewish religion " pass- 
 ed the Irish House of Commons, but was 
 lost, I believe, in England. So late, how- 
 ever, as the year 1 796, " all foreigners of all 
 descriptions " (including, of course, Jews, 
 Turks, and other outlandish infidels,) were 
 invited not only to the benefits of naturali- 
 
219 
 
 zation, but to the enjoyment of all those ci- 
 vil advantages, from which the native Catho- 
 lic was then, and is now, excluded. 
 
 The Preamble of one of these latitudina- 
 rian Acts (1780) merits well to be recorded, 
 both as a sample of legislative effrontery, and 
 of that fancy which some tyrants have for 
 showing that they know what is right, mere- 
 ly to enhance their pleasure in doing all 
 that is wrong: " Whereas the increase of .peo- 
 ple is a means of advajicing the *wealth and 
 strength of any nation ; and whereas many 
 foreigners and strangers, from the lenity of 
 our government^ the benefit of our laws, the 
 advantages of our trade, the security of our 
 property, and the consideration of the plen- 
 tifulness of all sorts of useful and profitable 
 commodities, with which Ireland abounds, 
 might be induced to settle in the kingdom, 
 if they "were made partakers of the advantages 
 and privileges^ which the natural-born sub- 
 jects of this realm do enjoy," &c. 
 
 It is evident that, under Lord Townshend's 
 administration. Patriotism was a much more 
 formidable thing than Popery, as, in buying 
 
 L 2 
 
220 
 
 up the former article, no expense was spa- 
 red, — while the addition often pounds to the 
 annual sum of thirty, secured by the 8th 
 of Anne to every Popish priest that should 
 become Protestant, was all that the favourite 
 old cause of Proselytism could obtain. As 
 the Act itself piteously recites, " It was 
 found by experience that the former provi- 
 sion of thirty pounds was in no respect a suf- 
 ficient encouragement for Popish priests to 
 become converts ;" — therefore, what nei- 
 ther thirty pounds nor some centuries of 
 persecution could effect, it was thought a bid- 
 ding of ten pounds more might perhaps 
 bring about. It was ordered, too, that the 
 forty pounds annually should be " levied on 
 the inhabitants of the district wherein the con- 
 vert last resided ;" and thus the same mode 
 since adopted to check the practice of illicit 
 distillation, namely, that of fining the town- 
 land where an illicit still was found, was by 
 this sagacious Act applied to encourage the 
 growth of conversion — as if it was necessary 
 to add fiscal to spiritual considerations, to 
 keep a neighbourhood on the alert against 
 
221 
 
 the introduction of Protestantism among 
 them. 
 
 Such (I again and again repeat it) were 
 the bungling bigots and oppressors, whose 
 handy-work we see before us in the present 
 condition of Ireland — whose wicked absurdity 
 still lives among their worthy Orange suc- 
 cessors — and whose system will, I foresee, 
 like the old Bucentaur of Venice, be carefully 
 kept together in patched-up preservation, as 
 long as a single fragment of the rotten, but 
 sacred, hulk remains. 
 
222 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 1778. 
 
 Relaxation of the Penal Code.— Alarm of the RocKS 
 thereat. — Flattering confidence of my father in the 
 English Government. — His sagacious speech to his 
 children thereon.— Standing toast of the RocK family. 
 
 About this time there were symptoms of 
 a disposition in our rulers to soften the se- 
 verity of the Penal Code, which alarmed 
 some members of my family considerably. 
 Recollecting those lines of the prophecy, 
 already quoted, 
 
 As lo'.ig as Millions shall kneel down 
 To ask of Thousands for their own. 
 While Thousands proudly turn away, 
 And to the Millions answer " Nay," 
 So long the merry reign shall be 
 Of Captain Rock and his Family, 
 
 they considered every approach to justice and 
 liberality, as a step towards the discomfiture 
 and downfall of our Dynasty. 
 
223 
 
 The indulgences, it is true, were not of a 
 very alarming description ; for the first great 
 favour granted to the Catholics was an Act 
 empowering them to take leases of " unpro- 
 fitable bog," — half an acre of arable land 
 being thrown in as a douceur with fifty acres 
 of bog, " in case the depth of the bog from 
 the surface, when reclaimed, should be four 
 feet at least." This liberal extension of the 
 blessings of property to the Papists, though 
 violently opposed, as a measure tending to 
 encourage Popery, (reclaiming bogs an en- 
 couragement to Popery ! ) was at length car- 
 ried in the year 1772. 
 
 The next great benefit bestowed upon the 
 Catholics was the allowing them to take the 
 Oath of Allegiance : and this kind permission 
 to the victim to come and swear eternal 
 fidelity to his tormentors, — though as insult- 
 ing a piece of mockery as can well be 
 imagined, — was received with the warmest 
 gratitude by the Catholics ; because it, at 
 least, acknowledged their existence as sub- 
 jects, and put an end to that lively fiction of 
 the law, which would have returned " non 
 est inventus " of two millions of people. 
 
224. 
 
 At length, in the year 1778, the fears of 
 England — then suffering, in America, for her 
 Saturnian propensity to devour her own off- 
 spring — and the gradual increase of a national 
 spirit in Ireland, concurred in removing the 
 most obnoxious of the Penal statutes, — of those 
 laws, which had so long excluded the great ma- 
 jority of the nation, from all interest or pro- 
 perty in the soil on which they trod ; and by 
 which our rulers, having first plundered us of 
 the estates and possessions of our forefathers, 
 set an interdict on our acquisition of any more 
 for our descendants. 
 
 By the 17 and 18 of George III., any Ca- 
 tholic, subscribing the Oath of Allegiance 
 and Declaration prescribed by a former Act, 
 might take, enjoy, and dispose of a lease for 
 999 years, certain, or determinable on the 
 dropping of five lives ; their possessions were 
 in future to be descendible, devisable, or alien- 
 able, as fully as if belonging to any other of 
 His Majesty's subjects : nor could a son any 
 longer fly in the face of his father, and by 
 a pretended conformity to the established 
 Faith, despoil him at once of all right in 
 tlie disposal of his property, and bring 
 
'225 
 
 his grey hairs in sorrow and beggary to the 
 grave *. 
 
 Such reverence had the Romans for the 
 deity who presided over Property, that, in 
 making room for the temple of Jupiter Olym- 
 pius in the Capitol, die seat of every god, ex- 
 
 * The relaxing laws of this period, however, only 
 related to real estates and chattels real, and did not 
 affect goods or personal chattels ; so that a child might 
 still plead the Statute against his father in all cases con- 
 nected with the latter sort of property : and the power 
 with which this parricidal law armed the child against 
 the parent may be judged of from the following speci- 
 men : — " But the policy of the legislature was not yet 
 exhausted; because there was a possibility that the 
 parent, though sworn and otherwise compellible, might 
 by false representations evade the discovery of the 
 ultimate value of such property on the_;?r*^ Bill, — new 
 Bills may be brought at any time, by any or by all the 
 children, for a further discovery. Such property of the 
 parent is to undergo a fresh scrutiny, and in conse- 
 quence of this scrutiny, a new distribution is to be 
 made ; the parent can have no security against the 
 vexation of reiterated Chancery-suits, and continual 
 dissection of such his property, but by doing, what it 
 must be confessed is somewhat difficult to human feel- 
 ings — by fully and without reserve abandoning such 
 
 L 5 
 
226 
 
 cept Terminus, was removed. Though our 
 Irish legislature had never, heaven knows, 
 shown any such scruples about this deity, 
 but had shouldered him out of his place for 
 every " malus Jupiter " that came, this first, 
 late sacrifice at his shrine must be allowed its 
 full share of importance ; and the prospect of 
 
 property (which may be his whole) to be disposed of at 
 the discretion of such a court in favour of such children. 
 Is this enough, and has the parent purchased his repose 
 by the total surrender for once of such effects ? Very 
 far from it ; the law very expressly and carefully pro- 
 vides that he shall not ; for, as in the former case a 
 concealment of any part of such effects is made the 
 equitable ground of a new Bill, so here any increase of 
 them is made a second ground of inquiry ; for the chil- 
 dren are authorized, if they can find their parent has by 
 his industry, or otherwise, acquired any property since 
 their first Bill, to bring others compelhng a fresh ac- 
 count and another distribution. They may bring such 
 Bills toties qicoties, upon every improvement of such 
 property by the parent," &c. &c. Introduction to a 
 Digest of the Popery Laws, by the Hon. Simon Butler. 
 When it is recollected that such monstrous laws 
 were in force so late as the year 1792, can we wonder 
 that a Government by Insurrection-Acts has not yet 
 been able to efface the recollection of them ? 
 
227 
 
 comfort and security, which it opened upon 
 the Catholics, was viewed with alarm not 
 only by the High- Church politicians of the 
 day, but (as I have already observed) by 
 some of the leading members of my own fa- 
 mily — whose coincidence, indeed, with the 
 views and sentiments of this Hiffh- Church 
 
 o 
 
 party is, on most occasions, strikingly re- 
 markable. 
 
 Being well aware that peaceful and comfort- 
 able habits always follow in the train of com- 
 petence and security, my worthy relatives na- 
 turally feared that the rank and influence of 
 our family might, in the long run, be mate- 
 rially diminished, and perhaps ultimately de- 
 stroyed, by the spread of such tame and anti- 
 Rockite propensities. Looking, too, upon this 
 measure as but the precursor of more im- 
 portant concessions, which might gradually 
 raise the Catholics to a level with their Pro- 
 testant fellow-subjects, and leave them at last 
 so entirely without any cause of complaint, 
 that a rebellion could not be had for love or 
 money — they began to regard the " latter 
 days " of the Rocks as near at hand, and fell 
 
228 
 
 for some time into a state of despondency, 
 which rendered the spirit of White-boyism in 
 the South very slack indeed. 
 
 My father's views of the matter, however, 
 were far more consolatory, and his depen- 
 dence on the fiitiire injustice and absurdity of 
 our rulers much more sanguine. " I grant 
 you," he would say in Irish — for he never 
 deigned to use any other language to his 
 children — " I grant you, that if the Govern- 
 ment were likely to follow up, with a willing 
 spirit, this first step of liberality towards 
 Ireland, and to remove cordially, and at once, 
 every link of her irritating chains from her, 
 the future history of the Rocks would be a 
 dreary and inglorious blank. 
 
 " But there is no fear, my children, of such 
 a deviation from the usual course of nature, 
 as a wise and liberal administration of the 
 government of Ireland would exhibit; and 
 even did the Protestant Church condescend 
 to work miracles, this is the very last she 
 would willingly have a hand in. No, no — it 
 may possibly happen again, in some moment 
 of embarrassment and weakness like the pre- 
 
229 
 
 sent, that a few further concessions may be 
 wrung from the fears of our rulers : but the 
 very circumstances under which such boons 
 are extorted, leave the giver without merit, 
 and the receiver without gratitude ; and the 
 old system of exclusion and oppression under 
 which our family have so long prospeied, 
 will — instead of suffering any material inter- 
 ruption, by these momentary aberrations into 
 justice — rather return to its iniquities with a 
 refreshed spirit, and take revenge for the loss 
 of those few instruments of mischief which it 
 surrenders, by a doubly vigorous use of the 
 many that will still remain in its hands. 
 
 "So far, indeed, (continued my father,) 
 from foreseeing any mischief to the Rock 
 cause, in these partial measures of enfranchise- 
 ment which our rulers so reluctantly grant, 
 it is the very mode of proceeding, which, had 
 I the means of influencing their councils, I 
 would myself suggest for the perpetuation of 
 that discord which is so dear to us. Give 
 the Catholic (I would say) just enough of li- 
 berty and power, to inspire him with pride 
 
230 
 
 and make him feel his own strength ; while, 
 at the same time, you withhold all that could 
 gratify this pride, and employ the strength 
 which you have bestowed upon him against^ 
 instead of/br, you. In short, loosen his chains 
 no more than will enable him to be pugna- 
 cious with effect, and leave him nothing to be 
 grateful for, but the power of doing you mis- 
 chief. 
 
 " This, my dear children, is the very plan 
 I would myself recommend, for keeping the 
 flame of discord as lively among us, as the in- 
 extinguishable fire of St. Bridget at Kildare. 
 Under the Penal laws w^e were benighted and 
 hopeless — complete Enfranchisement would 
 make us enlightened and satisfied ; — it is only 
 in the twilight state between, that those false 
 lights and spectral appearances are abroad, 
 by which men's optics are deceived, and their 
 imaginations led astray ; — it is only after hav- 
 ing tasted the cup of liberty, without being 
 suffered to allay our awakened thirst, that 
 that feverish and almost maddened excite- 
 ment comes on, which is so favourable to the 
 
231 
 
 views of our ancient family, and which the 
 Government — take the word of old Captain 
 Rock for it — will long cherish and keep alive 
 for our advancement and honour. 
 
 " Instead, therefore, of seeing in their pre- 
 sent measures, any cause for the slightest de- 
 spondency or alarm, we should, on the con- 
 trary, be most grateful for this admirable plan 
 which they have adopted, of increasing the 
 wealth and spirit of the Catholic, and, at the 
 same time, keeping the ancient stock of his 
 discontent and hostility undiminished — of 
 placing him with a sword in one hand, and a 
 hand-cuff on the other, in order that he may 
 be incessantly reminded of his servitude and 
 his strength, and, between both, be kept in a 
 perpetual struggle. 
 
 " Let us hope, my sons, for this system the 
 same success, which has attended all others, 
 of a like tendency, pursued by our pains- 
 taking rulers, and let us still continue to drink, 
 with the same cordiality as heretofore, — to 
 ' that hestfriejidofthe RoCK Interest, the Pro- 
 testant Ascendancy of Ireland.'' " 
 
 So saying, my venerable father would toss 
 
232 
 
 off a bumper of usquebaugh, which was at that 
 time his favourite beverage*; — and never, I 
 believe, was toast drank with a more loyal 
 sincerity, or with more perfect consciousness, 
 on the part of the drinker, of the great ad- 
 vantages derived from the system which he 
 thus solemnly commemorated. 
 
 By such speeches as these (and time has 
 fully proved their sagacity and their truth) 
 the hopes of my father's family and followers 
 were by degrees reanimated, and their confi- 
 dence in the future incapacity and perverse- 
 ness of our rulers restored. 
 
 Nor was it long before the Government 
 itself took steps to undeceive any simple and 
 short-sighted persons, who might have sup- 
 posed that the reign of terror was drawing to a 
 
 ♦ In Foote's farce of The Orators, there is an un- 
 answerable speech by an Irishman in favour of usque- 
 baugh versus porter. " As for porter, (he exclaims,) 
 if 'twas n't for the hops and the malt, I'd as lief drink 
 Thames water." This is like saying, " If it was not 
 for Mr. Canning's fine fancy, abundant wit, felicity of 
 diction, and gracefulness of delivery, I would as soon 
 listen to Sir Thomas Lethbridge." 
 
233 
 
 close. Just at the time when the long-enjoyed 
 sport of hunting Catholics with Penal statutes 
 was given up, a new pack of laws was put 
 into training, of the very same blood-hound 
 breed of legislation — which, under names 
 as various as those of Actaeon's kennel in 
 Ovid, (Whiteboy Acts, Riot Acts, &c. &c.,) 
 have kept the same game full in view ever 
 since — thus contriving, with a care equal to 
 that of the Game Laws in England, to pre- 
 serve to our Orange country-gentlemen their 
 right of a Catholic chasse^ uninterruptedly, 
 though under different forms, down to the 
 present day *. 
 
 * From the following circumstance, related by the 
 Bishop of Cloyne, as having occurred at this period, 
 we see that a talent for flagellation is not new among 
 Irish magistrates:—" In the County of Waterford, Sir 
 Richard Musgrave, Bart. (High Sheriff for the last year) 
 a gentleman of large property, of extensive and ho 
 nourable connections, was reduced to the necessity 
 of inflicting the punishment of whipping on a Whiteboy 
 with his own hand." 
 
234. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 1782. 
 
 Irish Revolution of 1782. — Symptoms of Degeneracy 
 in the Captain. — Confession of his Weakness. — Wise 
 Speech of Old RocK. — His Death and Character. 
 
 I WAS in my twentieth year at that memo- 
 rable period, when the Ught that had arisen 
 in America found its way to the shores of Ire- 
 land — when the Irish Parliament, in the very 
 grave of its corruption, for the first time 
 heard the sacred voice of Liberty, saying, 
 " Come forth ;" and the same warning voice 
 said to England, " Loose him, and let him 
 
 go." 
 
 Powerful as England had always been in 
 oppressing, she was now too weak to pro- 
 tect us, when menaced with invasion by 
 France ; and the Volunteers of Ireland took 
 the defence of our coasts upon themselves. 
 From being the defenders of their country's 
 shores, they soon rose to be the assertors of 
 
235 
 
 her rights ; and with swords in their hands 
 and the voice of Grattan sounding in their 
 van — " my lightning thou, and thou my thun- 
 der " — achieved that bloodless conquest over 
 the policy of England, whose results were 
 Freedom to our Trade and Independence to 
 our Parliament. 
 
 And here — as a free confession of weak- 
 nesses constitutes the chief charm and use of 
 biography — I will candidly own that the dawn 
 of prosperity and concord, which I now saw 
 breaking over the fortunes of my countr}^, so 
 dazzled and deceived my youthful eyes, and so 
 unsettled every hereditary notion of what I 
 owed to my name and family, that — shall I 
 confess it ? — I even hailed with pleasure the 
 prospects of peace and freedom that seemed 
 opening around me ; nay, was ready, in the 
 boyish enthusiasm of the moment, to sacrifice 
 all my own personal interest in all future 
 riots and rebellions, to the one bright, se- 
 ducing object of my country's liberty and 
 repose. 
 
 This, I own, was weakness — but it was a 
 weakness "plus fort que moi." I ought to 
 
236 
 
 have learned better from the example of my 
 revered father, vi^ho, too proud and shrewd 
 to cheat himself with hope, had resolved to 
 make the best of his only inheritance, despair. 
 I might have learned better, too, even from 
 the example of our rulers — who not only have 
 never indulged in any castle-building for Ire- 
 land themselves, but have done their best to 
 dispel, as soon as formed, the bright " dreams 
 into the future" of others. But I was young 
 and enthusiastic, and this must be my excuse. 
 
 When I contemplated such a man as the 
 venerable Charlemont, whose nobility was to 
 the people, like a fort over a valley — elevated 
 above them solely for their defence ; who in- 
 troduced the polish of the courtier into the 
 camp of the freeman, and served his country 
 with all that pure, Platonic devotion, which a 
 true knight in the times of chivalry proffered 
 to his mistress ; — when I listened to the elo- 
 quence of Grattan, the very music of Free- 
 dom — her first, fresh matin song, after a long 
 night of slavery, degradation and sorrow ; — 
 when I saw the bright offerings which he 
 brought to the shrine of his country, wisdom, 
 
237 
 
 genius, courage, and patience, invigorated 
 and embellished by all those social and domes- 
 tic virtues, without which the loftiest talents 
 stand isolated in the moral waste around them, 
 like the pillars of Palmyra towering in a wil- 
 derness;— when I reflected on all this, it not 
 only disheartened me for the mission of dis- 
 cord which I had undertaken, but made me 
 secretly hope that it might be rendered unne- 
 cessary ; and that a country, which could pro- 
 duce such men and achieve such a revolution, 
 might yet — in spite of the joint efforts of the 
 Government and my family — take her rank in 
 the scale of nations, and be happy ! 
 
 My father, however, who saw the momen- 
 tary dazzle by which I was affected, soon 
 drew me out of this false light of hope in 
 which I lay basking, and set the truth be- 
 fore me in a way but too convincing and omi- 
 nous. 
 
 " Be not deceived, boy," he would say, 
 " by the fallacious appearances before you. 
 Eminently great and good as is the man to 
 whom Ireland owes this short era of glory, 
 and long as his name will live among her 
 most cherished recollections, yet is all that he 
 
238 
 
 hath now done but a baseless vision of the 
 moment — like one of those structures raised 
 by the Genii of fable, to show the power of 
 the spirit that called it up, and vanish ! 
 
 " Our work, believe me, will last longer 
 than his. We have a Power on our side that 
 ' will not willingly let us die ; ' and, long after 
 Grattan shall have disappeared from earth, 
 — like that arrow shot into the clouds by 
 Acestes — effecting nothing, but leaving a long 
 train of light behind him, the Family of the 
 Rocks will continue to flourish in all their 
 native glory, upheld by the ever-watchful 
 care of the Legislature, and fostered by that 
 ' nursing-mother of Liberty, the Church *.' 
 
 " Let me draw aside, for a moment, the 
 curtain that hangs between us and reality, 
 and show you what are the actual features of 
 the country, in this hour of national jubilee 
 
 and triumph 
 
 " A Parliament, emancipated indeed from 
 Poyning's law, but rotten to the heart with 
 long habits of corruption, and ready to fall 
 at the first touch of the tempter — a conspi- 
 racy against the very existence of this Parlia- 
 
 * So called bv Lord Eldon. 
 
239 
 
 ment, meditated even now, in the birth-hour 
 of her independence, and only reserved, like 
 Meleager's billet, till the fit moment of her 
 extinction arrives — an Aristocracy left free by 
 this measure, without the restraints of an Ap- 
 pellate jurisdiction, to give the fullest swing 
 to their tyranny and caprice — five-sixths of 
 the population still shut out from that boasted 
 Constitution, whose blessings, like the 'sealed 
 fountain ' kept by Solomon for his own pri- 
 vate drinking, are still reserved for a small 
 privileged caste alone; — a spirit of intolerance, 
 even among those self-styled patriots, who 
 ' think it freedom when themselves are free ;' 
 and who, though standing in the fullest sun- 
 shine of the Constitution, would not believe 
 in the substatice of their liberty, if they did 
 not see it cast a shadow of slavery over others 
 — an Established Church rising rapidly into 
 power and wealth, and wringing her wealth 
 from the very vitals of those, whom her power 
 is employed in oppressing and persecuting : — 
 such are the principal ingredients, of which 
 this happy country is composed at present, 
 and such the materials of future discord, on 
 
240 
 
 which the Dynasty of the Rocks may confi- 
 dently calculate, for the long continuance, if 
 not perpetuation, of their reign. 
 
 " Away then, my child, with all this fool- 
 ish romance, and prepare yourself, as be- 
 comes a son of old Captain Rock, for that 
 enlarged arena of contention, into which the 
 Government and Church will soon summon 
 you. I have but a little while longer to live 
 in this world ; but I should part from it with- 
 out regret, if I thought I left a son behind 
 me, who would follow worthily in the career 
 of riot which I have marked out for him." 
 
 Not long after this, my excellent father 
 died ; and it is worthy of record, as a singu- 
 larity in the annals of the Rocks, that he 
 died in his bed. He had been womided in a 
 skirmish with some parish officers, who had 
 seized the cow of a poor woman for Church 
 Rates*, and were driving it off in triumph 
 
 * " It seldom occurs that the parish officer is not on 
 the walk, collecting what is called * Parish Cess.' He 
 is to be met with every day, driving some poor man's 
 cow to the pound, to enforce the payment of this 
 charge, which is assessed by the acre. The poor pea- 
 
241 
 
 to the Pound amidst the lamentations of her 
 little ones. My father, indeed, succeeded in 
 obtaining one more day's milk for the young 
 claimants; but the wound, at his advanced 
 time of life, was fatal, and he resigned his 
 heroic breath on the 1st of April, 1783. 
 
 My father's character was an assemblage 
 of all those various ingredients, that meet 
 and ferment in the heads and hearts of Irish- 
 men. Though brave as a lion, his courage 
 was always observed to be in the inverse pro- 
 portion of the numbers he had to assist him ; 
 
 santry are, as usual, the principal victims ; as the cess 
 is levied from the occupants exclusively." Practical 
 Views and Suggestions, &c., by Hibernicus. 
 
 The same intelligent and useful writer, in complain- 
 ing of the wretched state of the Pounds, in general, 
 says, '* There is no public establishment so much used 
 in Ireland as the Pound; and the fees paid to the 
 bailiffs in charge of these for indulgences, or dues ar- 
 bitrarily imposed, are comparatively considerable. In 
 consequence of ill treatment in those places of con- 
 finement, it happens, not only generally, but almost 
 universally, that the cattle are much injured, often de- 
 preciated a third or more in value, whereby the poor 
 peasant is made a serious sufferer." 
 
 M 
 
24.2 
 
 and, though ready to attempt even the im- 
 possible when alone, an adequate force was 
 sure to diminish his confidence, and superiority 
 in numbers over the enemy was downright 
 fatal to him. 
 
 The pride, which he took in his ancestry, was 
 the more grand and lofty, from being founded 
 altogether on fancy — a well-authenticated 
 pedigree, however noble, would have de- 
 stroyed the illusion. He had a vague idea — 
 in which the school-master used to help him 
 out — of those happy days when Ireland was 
 styled the Island of Saints, and when such 
 of our ancestors as were not saints were, at 
 least, kings and princes. Often would he 
 hold forth, amidst the smoke of his wretched 
 cabin, on the magnificence of the Hall of 
 Tara, and the wisdom of the great Ollam 
 Fodhlah — much to the amusement, as I have 
 heard, of the second Mrs. Rock, who, 
 proud of her own suspected descent from a 
 Cromwellian drummer, used to laugh irre- 
 verently both at my father and at old Ollam 
 Fodhlah. 
 
 I was indeed indebted for my first glimmer- 
 
243 
 
 ing knowledge of the history and antiquities 
 of Ireland, to those evening conversaziones 
 round our small turf fire, where, after a frugal 
 repast upon that imaginative dish, " Potatoes 
 and Point*," my father used to talk of thetradi- 
 tions of other times — of the first coming of the 
 Saxon strangers among us — of the wars that 
 have been ever since waged between them and 
 the real Irish, who, by a blessed miracle, 
 though exterminated under every succeed- 
 ing Lord-lieutenant, are still as good as new, 
 and ready to be exterminated again— of the 
 great deeds done by the Rocks in former 
 days, and the prophecy which foretells to 
 them a long race of glory to come — all which 
 the grandams of our family would wind up 
 with such frio^htful stories, of the massacres 
 committed by Black Tom + and old Oliver, 
 as have often sent me to bed with the dark 
 
 * When there is but a small portion of salt left, the 
 potatoe, instead of being dipped into it by the guests, 
 is merely, as a sort of indulgence to the fancy, pointed 
 at it. 
 
 f Lord Strafford. See the Preface. — Editor. 
 
 M 2 
 
24-4 
 
 faces of these terrible persons flitting before 
 my eyes. 
 
 His hospitality was ever ready at the call 
 of the stranger ; and it was usual with us at 
 meal-time (a custom still preserved among the 
 cottiers of the South) for each member of the 
 family to put by a potatoe and a drop of milk, 
 as a contribution for the first hungry wander- 
 er that should present himself at the door. 
 Strangers, however, to be thus well received, 
 must come to pass through our neighbour- 
 hood, not to settle in it; for, in the latter 
 case, the fear of their dispossessing any of 
 the actual occupants, by offering more to the 
 agent or middleman, for the few acres each 
 held of him at will*, made them objects far 
 more of jealousy than of hospitality — and 
 summary means were always taken to quicken 
 
 * The misery of a tenure at will, where there is no 
 confidence between the landlord and the tenant, may 
 easily be conceived. " On several estates in the high- 
 lands, (says Colonel Stewart,) tenants neither ask for 
 leases, nor are any given; yet improvements are carried 
 on with the same spirit as on estates where leases are 
 
24.5 
 
 their transit from among us. When oppres- 
 sion is up to the brim, every little accident 
 that may cause it to overflow is watched with 
 apprehension ; but where this feeling did not 
 interfere, hospitality had its full course, and 
 a face never seen before, and never to be seen 
 again, was always sure of the most cordial 
 welcome. 
 
 Of my father's happy talent for wit and 
 humour, I could fill my page with innume- 
 rable specimens, — all seasoned with that inde- 
 scribable sort of " vernacular relish*," which 
 Cicero attributes to the old Roman pleasantry. 
 But half the effect would be lost, unless I 
 could "print his face with his joke;" — besides, 
 the charm of that Irish tone would be want- 
 ing, which gives such rich effect to the enun- 
 ciation of Irish humour, and which almost in- 
 
 grantetl. In the former case, much of the confidence 
 of old times remains, the landlord's promise being as 
 good as his bond." Sketch of the Highlands of Scot- 
 land. 
 
 In Ireland, on the contrary, the tenant is never sure 
 that his little farm will not be canted, on the first op- 
 portunity, to the highest bidder. 
 
 * " Nescio quo sapore vernaculo." 
 
246 
 
 clines us to think, while we listen to it, that 
 a brogue is the only music to which wit should 
 be set. 
 
 That sort of confused eddy, too, which 
 the back-water of wit's current often makes, 
 and which, in common parlance, is called a 
 bull^ very frequently, of course, occurred in 
 my father's conversation. It is well known, 
 however, that this sort of blunder among the 
 Irish is as different from the blunders of 
 duller nations, as the Bull Serapis was from 
 all other animals of the same name ; and that, 
 like him, if they do not quite owe their origin 
 to celestial fire, they have, at least, a large 
 infusion of lunar rays in them*. 
 
 In the rapidity of his transitions from me- 
 lancholy to mirth, my father resembled the rest 
 of his countrymen. I have seen him and some 
 of my uncles, bending for hours over their 
 spades, with faces where Melancholy seemed 
 to have written " concession a perpetuite" — 
 when, suddenly, one of the party would jump 
 
 * The Bull Serapis was supposed to have been 
 "non coitu pecoris, sed coelesti igne, seu radiis lunaribus 
 conceptus." 
 
247 
 
 up and fling his spade in the air, uttering at 
 the same time a yell of mirth, which was 
 echoed as wildly by the rest — and instantly the 
 whole party would take to singing and caper- 
 ing, as if that dancing madness, which is said 
 to have once seized the tailors and shoemakers 
 of Germany, had suddenly come upon them 
 all. 
 
 He was a great believer in miracles, both 
 old and new — but the newer, the better ; and, 
 though sufficiently alive to the ridiculous on 
 all other subjects, he would listen to any old 
 woman's tale of a wonderful cure, with a gra- 
 vity of belief, which was by far the greater 
 wonder of the two — nor was it altogether safe 
 for a by-stander, on such occasions, to smile. 
 This, however, I look upon as the natural 
 consequence of his political position*. They, 
 
 * Our rulers are the last that ought to reproach us 
 with either our follies or our crimes : — 
 " If I am mad in others' eyes, 
 'Tis thou hast made me so." 
 
 "Tous les Ministres d'Etat," says Voltaire, "con- 
 clurent que le Taureau Blanc etait sorcier; c'etait 
 tout le contraire, il etait ensorcele; mais on setrompe 
 toujours a la Cour dans ces affaires delicates." 
 
248 
 
 whom all human means are employed to tor- 
 ment, may be allowed, at least, divine interpo- 
 sition to comfort them; and as a relief to pride, 
 if nothing else, it is a sort of set-off for the 
 slave against the insolence of his oppressor, 
 to represent himself as worthy of the peculiar 
 agency of Heaven. 
 
 Hence, miracles have been the weapon of 
 every persecuted faith. The Reformers in 
 Queen Mary's reign had their Spirit in the 
 Wall, delivering speeches against Philip 
 of Spain, and Popery*. We have seen, by 
 the Depositions collected after the rebellion 
 of J 641, how implicitly a Protestant Bishop 
 could believe in psalm-singing ghosts ; — and 
 the French Protestants, at the time of the 
 Revocation of the Edict of Nantz, made them- 
 selves as ridiculous with their Little Prophets, 
 their Shepherdess of Crete, &c.f, as ever my 
 
 * " An attempt was made," says Mr. Southey, "by 
 the Reformers to perform a miracle after the Romish 
 manner, by delivering speeches against the Queen's in- 
 tended marriage with Philip of Spain, and the restora- 
 tion of Popery." Book of the Church. ^ 
 
 t See Picart, sur les Fanatiques. 
 
 % 
 
249 
 
 father did in his most cure-believing mo- 
 ments *. That learned divine, Jurieu, who was 
 called the Goliath of the Reformed Church, 
 was a most devout believer in these Pro- 
 testant prodigies, and anathematized all who 
 did not swallow them as implicitly as he did 
 himself. 
 
 It is in vain, therefore, to tell us that Folly 
 confines herself to any particular creed — she 
 is no such bigot, but, like Pope's Belinda, 
 " shines on all alike" in their turn. 
 
 Contempt of life, which in some places and 
 circumstances is a heroic virtue, has been in 
 Ireland despoiled of all its merit by our 
 rulers, — who have contrived to reduce the 
 value of existence so low, that it passes, like 
 French assignats, for almost nothing. My 
 father, of course, had this feeling in common 
 with the rest of his fellow-slaves ; and, rating 
 the existence of others at the same price which 
 he set on his own, played for lives with his 
 
 * Among the swarm of pamphlets to which the late 
 Hohenlohe miracles gave rise in Dublin,there is but one, 
 (an " Attempt to explain by natural Causes," &c.) which 
 is at all likely to outlive the occasion that gave it birth. 
 This very clever production is attributed to the Sur- 
 geon-general, Mr. Crampton. 
 
 M 5 
 
250 
 
 masters as unconcernedly, as a gambling mil- 
 lionaire would for sixpences. 
 
 He could never, indeed, understand the 
 horror that was expressed, at the occasional 
 violences committed by him and his followers, 
 in this desperate game between them and 
 their masters. Regarding his situation as one 
 of perpetual warfare, — there being always two 
 camps in the country, that of the Govern- 
 ment, and that of Captain Rock, — he looked 
 upon all the plunder and bloodshed on both 
 sides, but as the usual and natural result of at- 
 tack and reprisal between belligerents ; nor 
 could be brought to conceive how his defeat 
 of a band of tithe-proctors, or his burning of 
 an oppressive landlord's corn-stacks, was at 
 all different from the surprise of a detach- 
 ment, or the cutting off an enemy's supplies 
 in regular warfare. 
 
 Caesar is supposed to have sent a million 
 of men out of the world, and Caesar is there- 
 fore a hero — while, if Captain Rock, in what 
 the laws have taught him to consider as fair 
 fighting as Caesar's, puts a merciless driver 
 hors de combat^ or pushes a middleman's mid- 
 dleman off his step in the ascending scale of 
 
251 
 
 tyrants, he is a ferocious, brutal and irre- 
 claimable savage. This my father could never 
 understand ; and, if he was wrong, his betters 
 are to blame, not he. 
 
 Voltaire is of opinion that all the united 
 vices of all ages and places would not equal 
 the miseries inflicted by one single campaign. 
 What, then, is to be said of Ireland, whose 
 whole history, from beginning to end, is but 
 one, long, continued campaign — a warfare, too, 
 combining both the sources of misery men- 
 tioned by Voltaire, since it has brought the 
 vices of each party into play, as well as their 
 swords ! 
 
 To reproach a country thus trained, with 
 its riotous and sanguinary habits — to expect 
 moderation from a people kept constantly on 
 the rack of oppression, is like Mercury, in 
 ^-Eschylus, coolly lecturing Prometheus, on 
 the exceeding want of good temper and tract- 
 ableness he exhibits — while the only grievance, 
 forsooth, he has to complain of, is being ri- 
 veted by his legs and arms to a rock, and 
 having a wedge of eternal adamant driven into 
 his breast ! 
 
252 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Captain* s opinions of Church Establishments in ge- 
 neral — of that of Ireland in particular, — Archbishops 
 and shoulder-knots. — Increase of the Catholic popula- 
 tion. — Diminution of the Protestant. — Wealth of the 
 Church. — First Fruits. — Church Rates. — Preliminary 
 articles of a negotiation between the Captain and the 
 Church. 
 
 " By Jupiter Amnion," says Clincher junr. 
 in the play, " all my religion is gone, since 
 I put on these fine clothes ;" and just so has 
 it happened, since the time of Constantine, to 
 every creed that has assumed the pomp and 
 splendour of Establishment: — what it has gain- 
 ed in wealth and worldly power, it has lost in 
 purity and spiritual usefulness. 
 
 That principle of exclusion, too, on which 
 all sects are more or less founded, though 
 comparatively harmless when applied to the 
 world to come, is, when brought into play 
 in the concerns of this life, and backed by the 
 
253 
 
 strength of a secular ally, productive of no 
 ordinary inconvenience and mischief. 
 
 As long as Popery had the whole Christian 
 world to herself, and the same livery of belief 
 was worn by all, this peculiar evil of Esta- 
 blishments had not yet developed itself. But 
 when the Reformation, unclasping the sacred 
 book, invited every man to read it by the 
 light of his own reason, such a multiplicity 
 of creeds and opinions sprung up through 
 Europe, as made the selection of any one, to 
 be the sole, exclusive partner of the State, 
 a choice as pregnant with discord as that of 
 the Shepherd of Ida himself. 
 
 And here began the interminable mischief 
 of Establishments. The Romish Church, 
 strong in primogeniture and possession, held 
 fast by her majorat of power wherever she 
 could, and employed all her old inquisi- 
 torial arts to maintain it. The Reformed 
 Faith, while professing to stand up for free- 
 dom of opinion, still retained the old Popisli 
 antipathy to dissent; and when she said, " I 
 leave you free to interpret the Scriptures as 
 you think proper," added, " but I will dis- 
 
254 
 
 franchise, imprison, and occasionally burn 
 you, if you do not interpret them in the same 
 sense that I do." 
 
 Hence sprung those struggles between 
 rulers and their subjects — that war of the two 
 principles. Force and Opinion, which, at first 
 religious, and then, by a natural transition, 
 political, has spread itself like wildfire every 
 where, and is at present agitating the whole 
 world. 
 
 From this statement it will readily be con- 
 cluded, that I consider a Church Establish- 
 ment eminently calculated to serve the cause 
 of discord, in whatever form it exists, and as 
 it exists in Ireland, supereminently so. In all 
 other countries, the laws of reason and nature 
 are so far consulted in this institution, that 
 the creed of the majority of the people has 
 been the religion adopted by the State ; and 
 so essential does Paley consider this ar- 
 rangement to the first object of an Establish- 
 ment — the religious instruction of the people* 
 
 * Because, as he justly says, " more efficacy is to be 
 expected from an order of men appointed to teach the 
 
255 
 
 — that, according to this sensible Divine, " it 
 is the duty of the magistrate^ in the choice of 
 the religion which he establishes, to co7isiilt the 
 faith of the nation, rather than his own" and 
 — still more strongly to the point in question 
 — " if the Disse?iters from the Establishment 
 become the majority of the people, the Esta- 
 blishment itself ought to be altered or quali- 
 fied* r 
 
 In Ireland, however, — where every thing is 
 done (as astronomers say) in antecedentia, or, 
 contrary to the order of the signs, — so com- 
 pletely has this obvious policy been reversed, 
 that the Church of about 500,000 persons out 
 of a population of seven millions, is not only 
 chosen and crowned as the sole Sultana of the 
 State, but the best interests of the State itself 
 
 people their own religion, than to convert them to an- 
 other." 
 
 Warburton, too, lays down the same self-evident 
 rule, that "where there are several religions existing in 
 a State, the State should naturally ally itself with the 
 largest." — Alliance between Church and State. 
 
 * The Bishop of Cloyne (Woodward), in quoting this 
 opinion, considers it " decisive against the Protestant 
 Church in Ireland." 
 
256 
 
 are sacrificed to her pride, and a whole peo- 
 ple turned into slaves and beggars for her 
 triumph. 
 
 The present Archbishop of Dublin, in his 
 celebrated Charge, pronounces the Roman 
 Catholic Church of Ireland to be "a Church 
 without a Religion," — meaning, I presume, 
 not that such names as Fenelon and Sir Tho- 
 mas More are to be erased altogether from 
 the page of Christianity, but that we poor 
 Irish Papists, having no well-paid Archbi- 
 shoprics, are therefore without a religion — 
 " That fellow has no soul, — where is his 
 shoulder-knot ? " 
 
 But what will such haughty Ecclesiastics 
 say, when, by the operation of causes which 
 seem as progressive as time itself, this people 
 of Catholics whom they insult so wantonly, — 
 whose number is at this moment as great as 
 that of the Protestants of England in 1688, 
 and who are, in spite of misery and Malthus, 
 every hour increasing — shall, like the disloyal 
 waves dashing round the feet of Canute, en- 
 croach still further on their sacred precincts 
 — when this Church without a Religion shall 
 have left them a Church without a Laity, and 
 
257 
 
 when one who inquires, " Where is the Pro^ 
 testant People of Ireland ? " may receive 
 nearly the same answer as that Inspecting 
 Colonel, who, on asking, " Where is the 
 Donegall Light Troop ? " was answered by 
 a solitary voice, " Here I am, your Ho- 
 nour ! " 
 
 The rapidity, indeed, with which the pro- 
 portion of Protestants to Catholics has dimi- 
 nished and is still diminishing, seems nothing 
 less than a judgement — a judgement of in- 
 sulted Nature upon that perverse and vi- 
 cious policy, which dares to set itself in array 
 against the wants and wishes of a whole na- 
 tion, and, like the absurd people mentioned 
 by Julian, who opposed the coming-in of the 
 sea with shields and swords, thinks to stop the 
 great current of nature by means of penal 
 statutes and bayonets. 
 
 One of those Reverend Orange pamphlet- 
 eers, who are at present so busy at their old 
 favourite task, of insulting and calumniating 
 the people from whom they derive their 
 wealth, affects to consider this smallness of the 
 Protestant population as rather a h\cky and 
 
258 
 
 providential circumstance. " There are," 
 he says, " certain compensatory advantages, 
 which may diminish, if not remove, the re- 
 grets of a statesman, that the sphere of the 
 Established Church has not hitherto been 
 wider. It was necessary that the aristo- 
 cracy of this country — the aristocracy, not 
 of wealth and power only, but of spirit, in- 
 dustry and intelligence — should be entirely 
 devoted to England, and should comprehend, 
 in their love of it, every thing that was En- 
 glish *," &c. &c. 
 
 * " Case of the Church of Ireland stated, by De- 
 clan." This Reverend pamphleteer has had the saga- 
 city to discover some dark design against Church and 
 State in the following lines of one of Moore's Melodies, 
 which he has thus marked in Italics in order to render 
 the awfulness of the menace more striking : — 
 
 Then blame not the bard, if in pleasure's soft dream 
 He should try to forget what he never can heal ; 
 
 Oh give but a hope — let a vista but gleayn 
 
 Through the gloom of his country, and mark what 
 he ' II feel. 
 
 This is like old Croaker, in Goldsmith's play, disco- 
 vering a threat of arson in a love-letter ; " Blood and 
 gunpowder in every line of it ! Little Cupid indeed ! Go 
 
259 
 
 " Our Church is great, because it is so small — 
 Then it were greater, were it none at all." 
 
 And to this Euthanasia it must speedily 
 come — unless, in conformity to Paley's wise 
 advice, such alterations and modifications are 
 promptly made, as shall, by diminishing its 
 powers of mischief, delay, if not wholly avert, 
 the catastrophe. 
 
 In the mean time, if what Tissot says be 
 true, that " tout ce qui hate les battemens du 
 coeur fait qu'il battra moins long tems," every 
 violent display of vigour — such as an Arch- 
 bishop charging^ at the head of his clergy, 
 right into the midst of six millions of people 
 — or, in a humbler way, a Reverend gentle- 
 man, like Mr. Fitzgibbon, ordering a party 
 of soldiers into the church-yard, and attack- 
 ing at once both the quick and the dead — 
 all such perilous manifestations of redundant 
 vigour ought, in the present plethoric and 
 ticklish state of the Irish Church, to be 
 
 to the devil, you and your little Cupid together ; Pm so 
 frightened I scarce know whether I sit, stand, or go." 
 
260 
 
 avoided as dangerous : and this hint, though 
 from an enemy, will, it is hoped, not be de- 
 spised. 
 
 To return to the subject of Population : — 
 Even in the North of Ireland, which was, not 
 many years since, the strong hold of Protest- 
 antism, emigration and intermarriage with 
 Catholics have so far diminished its numerical 
 preponderance, that in many places the scale 
 now leans considerably the other way. About 
 sixty years ago, as we are told in Stewart's 
 History of Armagh, the manor of Newry 
 contained twice as many Protestants as Ca- 
 tholics ; and, at present, the latter are to Pro- 
 testants, of all denominations, as three to one. 
 In Belfast too, where about the same time 
 back, there were not in the town and its neigh- 
 bourhood more than 300 Catholics, there are 
 now, it seems, at least 3500, who attend the 
 two Roman Catholic chapels in that town. 
 In some parishes of the North, indeed, the 
 proportion of the Roman Catholics has be- 
 come almost as overwhelming as in the 
 South ; thus in the parish of Clonmany, in 
 
261 
 
 the Diocese of Derry, I find the population 
 rated at 85 Protestants, 4-0 Dissenters, and 
 4650 Catholics ! 
 
 In the South, of course, the disproportion 
 is still more strikingly increasing. According 
 to a return made in 1733, by the collectors 
 of the Hearth-money, the Catholics were to 
 the Protestants in Kerry in the proportion 
 of 12 to 1 ; — and when Mr. Wakefield vi- 
 sited Kerry in 1808, he was informed that 
 the proportion of Catholics was " as 100 to 1, 
 or perhaps more." The same writer has 
 given the following account of the United pa- 
 rishes of Kilbarry and Donagh- Patrick, in the 
 county of Meath, " as furnished to him by 
 the Rev. John Fay, P. P. of the said pa- 
 rishes : " 
 
 In 1797, Protestants 51 Catholics, 3750 
 In 1811, do. 15 do. 4120 
 
 In the Report of a Committee on the State 
 of Popery in 1731 it was stated that in the 
 County of Mayo the Catholics were to the 
 Protestants as 12 to 1. " We may very well 
 believe," says Mr. Newenham, " that this pro- 
 portion has nearly doubled since that time." 
 
262 
 
 It appears, by Bishop Pocock's census in 
 the year 1731, that there were at that time in 
 the parish of Tullaroan, county of Kilkenny, 
 64 Protestants and 613 Roman Catholics — 
 and, in 1818, the numbers were only 5 Pro- 
 testants * and 2455 Catholics. It is worthy of 
 remark, too, as explaining the way in which 
 this enormous defection from the Establish- 
 ment takes place, that in this parish, which 
 forms a part of the Union of Callan, (com- 
 prising six rectories and six vicarages,) there 
 is no churchy and that, during one incumbency, 
 
 * See the " Statistical Account of Tullaroan," by the 
 Rev. Robert Shaw, in Mr. Shaw Mason's Parochial 
 Survey. " There are," he says, " but two Protestant 
 families, consisting of five individuals, in the parish, one 
 of whom settled there only last summer." We have 
 here, too, a proof of the self-frustrating power, which 
 the Penal spirit is fated to contain within it. In this 
 very parish, where Protestantism has thus melted away, 
 " it appears by the old leases, that in the purchases 
 made from * the Hollow-blade Company ' it was stipu- 
 lated that the grounds should be let to Protestants 
 onlyr Id. 
 
 See also, for an account of this parish, Mr. Shef- 
 field Grace's rare and curiously illustrated work. 
 
263 
 
 14*0 persons went over from the Protestant to 
 the Catholic Faith *. 
 
 I could bring many other instances; but 
 these will be fully sufficient to prove that, every 
 where throughout Ireland, by a sort of natural 
 tendency, the waters, on which the ark of 
 the Establishment rides, are ebbing from 
 beneath it with a degree of rapidity, which 
 threatens, ere long, to leave it dry and mo- 
 tionless f . 
 
 * In relating an instance of a much rarer sort of con- 
 version, that of a Catholic to the Protestant Church, 
 an Irish newspaper some time ago committed the fol- 
 lowing whimsical erratum: — "Yesterday Lord Dun- 
 boyne renounced the errors of the Popish faith and 
 embraced those of the Established Religion." 
 
 -|- Seneca tells us that when a proposition was once 
 made to the Roman Senate, that slaves should be di- 
 stinguished by a particular dress from freemen, it was 
 instantly felt what danger might arise, if the slaves 
 should by this means be enabled to number theirmasters : 
 — "deinde apparuit quantum pericvlum immineret, si servi 
 nostri numerare nos coejnssent. " — De Clementia. 
 
 That the same sort of alarm is felt among our 
 Orange masters, appears by the following extract from 
 a letter written by the late Catholic Archbishop of 
 Dubhn in the year 1811: — "A complete enumera- 
 
264. 
 
 With such results before our eyes of the old 
 and long-tried system of Catholic exclusion 
 and Protestant ascendancy, I can only say, 
 " God comfort their capacities," who can hope 
 for any better effects from the same system in 
 future ; or who, with a real danger of their 
 own making full before them, can con- 
 jure up imaginary ones to divert their atten- 
 tion from it. A sailor, who would first scuttle 
 the boat in which he is embarked, and then 
 lustily cry out " Fire ! " as he is going down, 
 would show just as rational a consciousness 
 of his situation as they do. 
 
 Let us now see how the Church, that has 
 the care of these few select souls — these 
 
 tion of the inhabitants of Ireland, distinguishing their 
 respective religious creeds, cannot be effected without 
 the sanction or permission of Government, ivhich the 
 present Adyninistration will not permit. The partial 
 enumeration referred to by My. Newenham, excited 
 uneasiness in the minds of tlie Ascendancy a7id Orange 
 partisans^ who represented them as records of Catholic 
 numbers to threaten the smaller number of Protestants. 
 A similar enumeration even in a single parish must be 
 conducted with caution and delicacy." 
 
265 
 
 " ames choisies " of the Establishment — is 
 paid for its important guardianship. 
 
 It is by no means wonderful that the startling 
 statements which have appeared, of the enor- 
 mous revenues of the Church of Ireland, 
 should have been received with some degree 
 of incredulity as well as surprise. When, 
 in addition to her usual share of the produce 
 of a country which feeds seven millions of 
 people, we hear of this Church possessing 
 estates to the extent of two millions of acres 
 — when it is stated, that in one Diocese alone 
 (that of Derry) the Church property, over 
 and above the tenth part of the gross pro- 
 duce of the land, must be worth not much 
 short of three millions * — we can hardly con- 
 ceive it possible that such monstrous wealth 
 should have been suffered by any Government, 
 
 * Edinburgh Review, — This of course must be a 
 vague estimate ; but when it is considered that the 
 Diocese in question possesses, besides estates in other 
 places, about a third of the whole county of Derry, the 
 value of such an extent of land cannot be much below 
 the sum stated. 
 
 N 
 
266 
 
 however absurd, to accumulate in the hands 
 of the teachers of so small a part of the po- 
 pulation ; nor can well understand by what 
 process, even of Irish exaction, an establish- 
 ment so preposterously, so insultingly rich, 
 can have been spun out of the entrails of the 
 very poorest people in Europe. Indeed, the 
 old notion of extracting sun-beams from cu- 
 cumbers, seems rivalled by the art with which 
 this Church has contrived, to extort splendour 
 and magnificence out of a population of 
 paupers. 
 
 That there has been some exaggeration 
 with respect to the value of Irish Bishoprics, 
 I am not disposed to deny. Mr. Wakefield 
 and, still more, the author of " The Con- 
 sumption of Wealth by the Clergy," have 
 needlessly over-stated the incomes of some of 
 these Reverend Personages*, whose prosperity 
 
 * The present Archbishop of Cashel, whose opi- 
 nions are entitled to every respect, and whose candour 
 an liberality furnish an example, well worthy of imi- 
 tation, to his brethren of all ranks, has in a late Charge 
 endeavoured to remove the impression that exists, with 
 
267 
 
 is already sufficiently florid, without the aid of 
 any such additional colouring. The suspicious 
 refusal of the Church itself, to furnish a full 
 and regular account of its revenues, has hi- 
 therto made it difficult to arrive at much ac- 
 curacy on the subject; and leaves every state- 
 ment of the wealth of the Irish Clergy open 
 to the same convenient charge of incor- 
 rectness and exaggeration. "With a similar 
 feeUng, Dr. Beaufort, one of their body, 
 having at first intended, in his Ecclesiastical 
 Map of Ireland, to mark with a particular 
 colour the lands belonging to the Church, 
 found the space through which this sacred 
 line meandered so vast, that thinking it wiser, 
 like Dogberry, to " give God thanks and make 
 no boast," he cancelled this betraying line al- 
 together, and published his Ecclesiastical 
 Map without it. 
 
 respect to the excessive wealth of the Church of Ire- 
 land. His Grace, however, has done little more than 
 refute the errors of a writer already acknowledged to 
 be erroneous, and has left the chief grounds, upon 
 which the received notion of the riches of the Irish 
 Church rests, wholly unshaken. 
 
 n2 
 
268 
 
 The returns of Glebe Lands, however, are 
 among the authentic documents before the 
 public, on which a pretty competent notion of 
 the great wealth of the Irish Church may be 
 formed. When to these we add the esti- 
 mates of their own incomes, brought forward 
 by the Incumbents during the late proceed- 
 ings under the new Tithe Bill, and fully justify- 
 ing the high average of 800/. per annum, 
 at which the benefices of Ireland have been 
 rated * — when we know, too, that three Arch- 
 bishops, who have died since the Union, 
 (Agar, Porter, and Fowler,) have left behind 
 them, though possessing originally nothing 
 of their own, no less a sum than 800,000/. 
 — we shall be inclined to conclude that the 
 statements which have appeared, of the im- 
 mense possessions of this Church, are not 
 far beyond the truth ; and may add to the 
 
 * According to an accurate retwn made to Mr. New- 
 enham in 1809, the value of the 56 benefices in the 
 Diocese of Cloyne amounted to upwards of 40,000/. 
 a year ; and, at the same time, " in the small Diocese 
 of Ross there were eight benefices worth 1,000/ a 
 year each and upwards." 
 
269 
 
 other monstrous anomalies of which Ire- 
 land is the victim, that of a Clergy better paid 
 for 7iot teaching six-sevenths of the popula- 
 tion, than the Clergy of any other country 
 in Europe are for instructing the whole of 
 theirs ! 
 
 With respect to the way in which this un- 
 paralleled wealth is employed, we have already 
 seen, in a preceding chapter upon Education, 
 how few scruples have been felt by either Bi- 
 shops or Clergy, in releasing themselves from 
 the obligation to contribute to the charges of 
 Pubhc Schools, which the laws and tlieir 
 own oaths so solemnly impose upon them. 
 Their evasion, too, of the payment of First 
 Fruits exhibits altogether — both on the part 
 of the Church which profits by such conduct, 
 and the Government which sanctions it — such 
 a magnanimous contempt of justice, con- 
 sistency, and even common decency, that, in 
 putting on record the examples of dishonesty 
 and rapacity, which have been set before us 
 by our betters, both lay and ecclesiastical, 
 this certainly deserves a high and most con 
 spicuous place. 
 
270 
 
 The First Fruits, it is well known, are 
 the first year's income of every ecclesiastical 
 dignity or benefice — and were paid to the 
 Crown from the time of the Reformation till 
 the reign of Queen Anne, when they were 
 given up to form a Fund for the increase of 
 small livings and the purchase of glebes. Al- 
 though, in the Statute of Henry VIIL, which 
 appropriated these revenues to the Crown, 
 there was a provision made for revising, from 
 time to time, that valuation of ecclesiastical 
 preferments under which they were then paid, 
 this old rate, notwithstanding the great rise 
 in the value of Church property, has conti- 
 imed to regulate the payment of First Fruits 
 ever since — the same Clergy, who are so 
 anxious to keep pace with the increasing 
 wealth of the times in what they receive, pre- 
 ferring rather to abide by the antiquated va- 
 luation in what they give. 
 
 The consequence of this is, that the Fund 
 in question, which may be estimated in En- 
 gland, I believe, at about 12,000/. a year, is 
 found to be altogether inadequate to its pur- 
 poses ; and, unless (as the Bishop of LandafF 
 
271 
 
 recommended) a new valuation of benefices 
 is made, and the Bishops and rich Pluralists* 
 compelled to pay real First Fruits and Tenths, 
 some hundreds of years, it is computed f , 
 must elapse, before the operation of Queen 
 Anne's Fund alone shall have raised the value 
 of the smaller livings, even a single degree 
 above the starving temperature. 
 
 Bad as this is, the case in Ireland is a hun- 
 
 * The only tax that I know at present upon PIu- 
 ralists is their being shut up in a room at Lambeth, on 
 receiving a second living, and compelled to write a 
 Latin Essay upon one of four given subjects. This, 
 to some of these Reverend persons, who are just clas- 
 sical enough (like the Divine mentioned by Balzac) 
 to mistake " Seneca de Beneficiis'* for a work on 
 Church Livings, must be, in no ordinary degree, incon" 
 venient — except that, indeed, criticism is bound to be 
 indulgent to the works of Pluralists^ on the rule laid 
 
 down so clearly by Horace: — " ubi Plura nitent 
 
 non ego paucis offendar maculis." 
 
 \ Dr. Warner, in the Appendix to his Ecclesiastical 
 History, published in 1757, observes that "it will be 
 500 years before every living can be raised to 60/. a 
 year by Queen Anne's bounty, supposing the same 
 money to be distributed as there has been for some 
 years past." 
 
272 
 
 dred-fold worse. The valuation of livings at 
 the time of the Reformation having, in conse- 
 quence of the unsettled state of the country, 
 been effected only in certain parishes, the 
 Clergy have, with their usual adroitness, 
 taken advantage of this omission, and found- 
 ed upon it, in spite of the positive law, a 
 claim to exemption from the tax altogether ; 
 — so that, between the few who pay according 
 to the low old rate, and the many who do 
 not pay at all, this Fund of First Fruits, from 
 tlie richest Church in the world, does not ave- 
 rage more than 370/. a-year ! 
 
 Nor is even this pitiful amount always duly 
 forthcoming; for it appears from the official 
 statement returned to Parliament, that there 
 was not a single penny paid on account of 
 the First Fruits, either in the year 1803, 1810, 
 1814, or 1822. 
 
 Attempts have been made to prevail on the 
 Legislature to authorize a new and complete 
 valuation, under which, even with exceptions 
 in favour of smaller livings, this Fund might 
 be made to produce between 20 and 30,000/. 
 a-year. But no : — Such a tax, it was answer- 
 
273 
 
 etl, would be " a hardship,"--a hardship up- 
 on that abstract but sensitive personage, the 
 Church. One of the Members of the Com- 
 mission appointed some time since, " to exa- 
 mine and search for the just and true vahie 
 of the said First Fruits," when proceeding 
 lately to exercise his powers, according to 
 what himself and his legal advisers considered 
 to be the true and express intent of his Patent*, 
 was suddenly stopped in his career by letters 
 from Mr. Goulburn and Mr. Gregory,— in- 
 forming him, for his edification, that the only 
 just and true value of First Fruits was that which 
 had been set upon them two hundred years 
 back ; and intimating that, if he persisted in 
 finding out any other "just and true value" 
 than the aforesaid, he should, for such offi- 
 cious discovery, be deprived of his Patent. 
 
 So watchful a dragon is Mr. Goulburn over 
 the golden fruits of the Clergy— so anxious is 
 he to keep this mighty reservoir of wealth, the 
 Church, sacred from all purposes of utility, in 
 
 * For the Case on behalf of the Commissioners, 
 the Opinion of Counsel, &c. &c. see Papers laid before 
 the House of Commons in April iH23. 
 
 N 5 
 
274 
 
 its present state of stagnant plenitude, without 
 a single drain or outlet by which Charity or 
 Duty can draw off the smallest portion of its 
 sacro-sanct stores. 
 
 In the mean time, for the purposes to w hich 
 this clerical tax, if paid according to the in- 
 tention of the law*, would be applied — 
 namely, the increase of small livings and pur- 
 chase of glebes — immense sums, to the amount 
 of more than a million since the Union, have 
 been granted to this omnivorous Church by 
 Parliament. The people have been thus doom- 
 ed to see the produce of such fiscal plagues 
 as the window-tax, which shut out the air and 
 light of heaven from their already miserable 
 dwellings, squandered away in the purchase of 
 glebes, even in that rich Diocese of Derry, 
 whose Bishop f was, in the mean time, spending 
 
 * In the course often years, ending January 1821, 
 it appears that one Archbishop and nine Bishops paid 
 for First Fruits 1131/. I2s. 9d. ; whereas the sum they 
 ought to have paid, under a fair valuation, would have 
 Ijeen at least 30,000/. 
 
 t The present Bishop, too, upon being consulted 
 with respect to the poor livings throughout Ireland, 
 
275 
 
 his enormous income in Italy, mishocked by 
 the sight of that misery which such exactions 
 were producing at home. 
 
 Is a country, thus treated, to be called "bar- 
 barous," because it rebels ? Say, rather, what 
 name would it deserve, if it did not rebel ? 
 
 Let us now inquire a little into another 
 blessing, which the Establishment confers 
 upon us, under the name of Church Rates. 
 
 The repairs of churches and all the other 
 expenses connected with them, are charges 
 to which a Fund, constituted as that of the 
 First Fruits ought to be, would naturally be 
 applied ; and, far from inflicting " hardship" 
 any where, such a just and obvious mode of 
 lightening the burdens of the people, would 
 in the end materially serve the interests of the 
 Establishment itself, whose idle and invidious 
 load of wealth is at present weighing it down 
 to earth. Not only ought it to bless every op- 
 portunity that occurs, of devoting some of its 
 redundance to useful purposes, but it should 
 even adopt a form of prayer, like that of 
 
 could propose no other mode of increasing them, than 
 " by the bounty of the King through Parliament!" 
 
276 
 
 Midas, to be relieved, as much as possible, 
 from the golden plethora under which it is 
 sinking : — 
 
 meritus torquetiir ab auro ; 
 Ad coelumque inanus et splendida brachia tollens, 
 Da veniam, Lenoee pater, peccavmus, inquit, 
 Sed miserere, precor, speciosoque eripe darnno. Ovid. 
 
 Unpitied sinking with the splendid weight 
 
 Of riches, once his pride, but now his hate, 
 
 To heaven he raised his glittering arms, and prayM — 
 
 "Forgive, ye Powers, a wretch whom wealth has 
 
 made; 
 And ease, in pity of a sinner's cries. 
 This golden malady of which he dies !" 
 
 Instead of this, however, through thegreater 
 part of Ireland, scarce a shilling is expended 
 in building, repairing or ornamenting the Pro- 
 testant places of worship, that is not wrung, 
 by parochial assessment, from the unfortunate 
 Catholic occupants of the district. Excluded, 
 too, by law, from attending the vestries, where 
 these levies are voted * and their applotment 
 
 * " It follows that, in Ireland, the Protestant parish- 
 ioners actually enjoy the privilege of assembling to- 
 gether, nnder the name of Parish Vestries, /o t/ie excln- 
 
277 
 
 agreed upon, the wretched Cathohc is ob- 
 hged, without even knowmg for what, to pay 
 his last penny to the parish officer — or else to 
 
 sion of the Catholics, of legislating and imposing such 
 yearly land-tax upon the Catholics, as they may think 
 proper, for the alleged purposes of building, repairing, 
 refitting, &c. Protestant houses of worship :— and of 
 providing lucrative occupation for each other. 
 
 '' To accommodate the Protestant carpenter, new 
 seats, doors and other wood-work are voted ; to the 
 mason, repairs of walls, or perhaps a spire, belfry, or 
 other subject of employment ; to the glazier, new 
 windows ; to the clerk, a salary, &c. Thus this Vestry, 
 like an Irish Grand Jury, creates lucrative presentments 
 for its members ; and the amount is levied rigorously 
 upon the defenceless Catholics." — Scully. 
 
 The following particulars extracted from the vestry 
 book of a parish, where a new church was built in 
 1808, will show the mode in which this tyranny of 
 Church Rates is exercised. 
 
 " Ot'ganuit —two first years paid by subscription 
 (among the Protestant parishioners), 30/. per annum — 
 third year, subscribers refused to pay ; on which a levy 
 mas made on the parish^ and raised to 50/., ever since 
 continued. Parish Clerk—should be 201., but was raised 
 to 30/., with a depidy at 10/. Singer — 5/." 
 
 Among other charges in the book is " 13/. to the 
 Rector for consecrating the church at ." 
 
278 
 
 see the cow driven away from his famishing 
 children to the pound. All this, perhaps, for 
 the repair and decoration of some church, 
 whose congregation is as select as that of Swift, 
 with his " dearly beloved Roger," — or else to 
 gratify the architectural taste of some Prelate, 
 like the last Bishop of Limerick, who per- 
 suaded himself, that he had civilized the Coun- 
 ty of Kerry by means of ornamental spires*. 
 
 Doctor Darwin had a plan for getting 
 rid of vol canes, by making chimneys in the 
 earth, to let the fire or steam escape : but this 
 scheme of tranquillizing Ireland by means of 
 Protestant spires, erected, as conductors, 
 throughout its most electric regions, is an 
 idea still more original and happy. 
 
 It will hardly be believed, that one of the 
 Church Rates levied by rich Protestant mi- 
 nisters upon the famishing peasantry around 
 them, is " for the ])urchase of elements for 
 the Holy Communion." The Bishop of Cloyne 
 (Woodward), in giving an account of some 
 
 * It is but justice, however, to this Prelate to say 
 that he is at present actively and liberally employed in 
 the improvement of his new Diocese, Cloyne. 
 
279 
 
 tithe transactions, which occurred in the year 
 1787, and in which I recollect having played 
 rather a distinguished part, thus enumerates 
 a tew of our achievements in the ecclesiastical 
 line : " They attacked the servants of the 
 clergy — they demanded of them a surrender 
 of old tithe notes — they intimidated vestries 
 from levying money for the repair of churches, 
 for the payment of the legal officers attending 
 the church, and foi^ the purchase of elements 
 for the Holy Communion^ 
 
 Well might an honest Dissenter, who an- 
 swered this pamphlet of the Bishop, exclaim, 
 "What ! — do the Lords of the land even com- 
 memorate their Saviour at the expense of the 
 Poor?" 
 
 An extract from one of the Acts in force with 
 respect to Church Rates, will sufficiently show 
 the " tricks before offended Heaven" which our 
 Protestant legislators play in Ireland. — After 
 reciting that " several parishes are united by 
 charters granted by the Crown, in some of 
 which there are hut very few Protestants inha- 
 biting, and in others none at all" it proceeds 
 to enact as "just and proper, that such 
 
280 
 
 parishes of the said Union as have not any 
 church or chapel, or church or chapel fit 
 for the celebration of Divine service, should 
 contribute to the payment of the annual in- 
 stalments of the loans granted, and to be grant- 
 ed, for the building, and rebuilding, and re- 
 pairijig of the churches or chapels of the pa- 
 rishes* to ii'hich they are or may be so united^ 
 That is to say, a parish where the inhabit- 
 ants are all Catholics, and which neither has 
 a Protestant church, nor wants one, is yet, 
 in consequence of being capriciously united 
 to some other parish, (for the purpose of form- 
 ing a rich benefice for some non-resident,) 
 obliged to contribute to the expense of "build- 
 ing, rebuilding, and repairing" the church 
 of that parish to which it is so unitedf, and 
 
 * Lord Liverpool, last session, in a Debate on this 
 very Bill, said, in answer to a speech full of argument 
 and wit, by Lord Holland— that he " would not enter 
 into the general question of the propriety of requiring 
 Roman Catholics to assist in building and repairing 
 Protestant Churches." This was, at least, prudent in 
 the Noble Minister. 
 
 ■\ Even in England, such contributions a to church 
 
281 
 
 in which there may happen to be a few Pro- 
 testants, to avail themselves of such a place of 
 worship. 
 
 As it may be imagined by the reader, that 
 this preposterous enactment is only one of the 
 few remains of that Anti-Popery system, 
 which modern liberality has long disavowed, 
 it is necessary to mention that the Act in ques- 
 tion is dated March 1823, and is ^'marque au 
 coirH^ with the wisdom of the present Secre- 
 tary of Ireland. 
 
 I have said that our Clergy are paid for not 
 teaching six-sevenths of the population — but 
 it will be seen by the foregoing statements, 
 that they do teach us some most notable les- 
 sons. Of uncharitableness and bigotry they 
 liavelong set us examples, by denouncing us as 
 
 in another parish, though from persons of the same 
 faith, has been considered a grievance. " There was a 
 question made," says Sir Simon Degge, "whether one 
 that holds lands in one parish, and resides in another, 
 may be charged for tlie ornaments of the parish church 
 where he doth not reside; and some opinions have 
 been, that foreigners were only chargeable to the shell 
 of the church, and not to bells, seats, or ornaments."— 
 FarsorHs Counsellor, 
 
282 
 
 idolaters and infidels, in their charges, sermons, 
 and pamphlets, and by always voting for the 
 continuance of our slavery in the senate. But 
 the instances which I have just given of their 
 evasion of the payment of dues, which shame 
 alone should have extracted from them, if 
 the law did not say a syllable on the matter, 
 sufficiently prove that, in our notions of ho- 
 nesty also, we have been indebted to the same 
 exemplary instructors ; and that, in refusing 
 to pay the various dues exacted from us, we 
 but follow humbly and at a distance in the 
 track of our Reverend and Most Reverend 
 prototypes*. 
 
 * It is not at all wonderful that the Church Esta- 
 blishment of England should feel alarmed at these mal- 
 practices of her Irish sister, and should hesitate as to the 
 prudence of making common cause with her. It has 
 been, indeed, for some time, a subject of consultation 
 among the English Prelates, whether they would better 
 consult the safety of their own Church, by taking up the 
 defence of the Irish Establishment, or by lea^^ng it, as a 
 desperate case, to itself: — and the total omission of all 
 reference to Ireland in the late Ecclesiastical Manifesto 
 in the Quarterly Review, seems awfully ominous of the 
 latter alternative. 
 
283 
 
 Tlie very next time, indeed, that it is my 
 lot to encounter a Parson in the field, I will 
 demand a parley, and propose to him the fol- 
 lowing terms : 
 
 "As a preliminary to any pacificatory ar- 
 rangement between Captain Rock and the 
 Church, it is expected that the latter will be- 
 gin by acting with a little of that honesty, 
 which she rather unreasonably requires should 
 be practised only by the Captain. She 
 must discharge, in future, those obliga- 
 tions which the law enjoins upon her, and 
 abandon for ever that old and favourite prin- 
 ciple, that payment should in, all cases, come 
 from the Poor alone. 
 
 " It appears that, since the Union, 47 epi- 
 scopal appointments have been made, the First 
 Fruits of which, if assessed and levied accord- 
 ing to their "just and true value," would have 
 amounted to at least 300,000/., — without ta- 
 king into account the immense sum, which the 
 dues payable from the inferior Clergy would 
 have produced in the same time. 
 
 " How much misery, tears and bloodshed 
 might have been spared to the wretched 
 
284 
 
 people, if these sums had been applied to 
 the purposes for which the law intended 
 them, and thus rendered unnecessary a 
 few of those most odious taxes, by which a 
 starving peasantry is compelled to make up 
 for the deficiencies of a rich but wilfully in- 
 solvent Church — how much odium, ill-blood, 
 and discord might have been avoided, if such 
 a Fund had even been employed towards the 
 remission of those disgraceful Rates, by which 
 the pig-stye of the poor Catholic is made tri- 
 butary to the ornamental spire of the Pro- 
 testant, and wretches, who are all but starv- 
 ing themselves, are taxed to provide the 
 Church with sacramental bread and wine — 
 how far such salutary effects might have been 
 produced, by a little more obedience, on the 
 part of the Church, to the laws not only of 
 the land, but of humanity and religion, it is 
 not for Captain Rock to insist upon at pre- 
 sent, in an instrument which is intended to 
 be neither retrospective nor criminatory. 
 
 " But the Captain hereby engages for him- 
 self and his People, that — if the Church, as the 
 most considerable and wholesale aggressor, 
 
285 
 
 will but take the first step in a return to the 
 paths of honesty and justice, by discharging 
 ui future those dues which the law requires 
 from her — he will be most happy, without de- 
 lay, to meet her on the grand question of 
 Tithes, and on all other matters at issue be- 
 tween them, in such a conciliatory spirit as 
 shall not only facilitate discussion, but lead 
 at length to a complete and final arrange- 
 ment of all their differences. 
 
 " In the mean time, Captain Rock begs 
 the Church to accept the assurances of his 
 high consideration, &c. &c. &c. &c." 
 
 I 
 
286 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 1782—1795. 
 
 Corruption of the Irish Parliament.— Pension-List. — 
 Golden Age of Jobbing. — Achievements of the Captain 
 in 1787. — Assumes the title of Captain Bight. — State 
 Physicians. 
 
 My father had predicted but too truly. 
 The hght of 1782 soon passed away, and left, 
 in the hearts of those who loved Ireland, only 
 a vague and restless imagination of what she 
 might have been. 
 
 The British Minister, no longer able to go- 
 vern us by his Attorney- general, was driven 
 to the more circuitous and expensive mode of 
 ruling us by our own Parliament; and a 
 course of corruption was now boldly entered 
 into — a sort of frank, Lothario spirit was 
 adopted by the Government, which seemed 
 to say, " Think'st thou I mean the shame 
 should be concealed ? " and which soon suc- 
 ceeded in making political profligacy fashion- 
 able. 
 
287 
 
 Had it been a regular trade- wind of Cor- 
 ruption, blowing steadily from the usual Tory 
 quarter, servility would have been at least 
 consistent, and might have even pretended to 
 honesty, on the ground of having but one pay- 
 master. But, just about this time, those Titans, 
 the Whigs, had succeeded more than once in 
 scaling the Olympus of office — and, though 
 speedily hurled down again, they remained 
 long enough each time, to puzzle both patriots 
 and courtiers considerably, and to produce 
 such a confusion in their votes and opinions, 
 as made it no easy matter to distinguish one 
 party from the other. 
 
 At length, however, Toryism and Cor- 
 ruption resumed their full and undisturbed 
 empire. A regular market was opened at the 
 Castle, and the price of every service, down 
 to single votes on particular questions, was 
 ascertained and tariffed with the most trades- 
 manlike accuracy. So little decency did the 
 Government observe in these transactions, 
 that the Attorney-general (afterwards Lord 
 Clare) did not hesitate on one occasion, when 
 some of the train-bands of the Court had 
 
288 
 
 joined the Opposition, to hint broadly at the 
 expense that would be incurred in buying 
 them back again*. 
 
 A writer on Eg}^t mentions, as a singular 
 phenomenon, the respect which the Mame- 
 lukes have for men who have been purchased 
 — far beyond what they feel for the most an- 
 cient nobility. A Turkish officer, in pointing 
 out to him some personage who held an im- 
 portant situation under Government, said, 
 " C'est un homme de bonne race — il a ete 
 acketefJ' What homage, then, would a Ma- 
 meluke feel for the "homxmes achetes" of the 
 Irish nobility — many of whom might intro- 
 duce an auctioneer's hammer into their coats 
 of arms, so often have they and their illus- 
 trious sires been knocked down to the highest 
 bidder ! 
 
 * " ' Half a mil/ion or more was expended some years 
 ago to break ayi o-pposition ; the same or a greater sum 
 viay be necessary now ; * — so said the principal servant 
 of the Crown." — Grattan's Answer to Lord Clare, 
 
 f " Ce prejuge," Reynier adds, " est tellement en- 
 racine, que les enfans de ces memes individus n'ont le 
 merae degre de noblesse avec leur pere et mere qui 
 ont ete achetes." 
 
28d 
 
 During the administration of the Marquis 
 •of Buckingham, the Pension List outstripped 
 ;that of England by several thousands ; and 
 when at length, under Lord Westmoreland, 
 as a momentary sacrifice to public opinion, a 
 Bill was allowed to pass limiting the grants of 
 pensions to 1,200/. a-year, advantage was 
 taken of the few months that were to elapse 
 before the commencement of the Act, to 
 grant pensions to the amount of more than 
 12,000/. — being equal to ten years' anticipa- 
 tion of the powers of the Crown. 
 
 This system was the consummation, the 
 coromSf of England's deadly policy towards 
 Ireland. Having broken down and barba- 
 rized our lower orders, by every method that 
 was ever devised for turning men into brutes, 
 she now premeditatedly — by the example of a 
 gay and dissipated court — by the encourage- 
 ment of habits of expense, and the ready 
 proffer of the wages of corruption to main- 
 tain them — so demoralized and denationalized 
 our upper classes, that perhaps the most 
 harmless part many of them have since 
 played has been that of Absentees. 
 
290 
 
 The venality, peculation, and extrava- 
 gance, exhibited in the higher departments 
 of the state, soon spread through the lower 
 — a concordat of mutual connivance was es- 
 tabhshed throughout, — and clerks, with a 
 salary of 100/. a-year, entertained their prin- 
 cipals with fine dinners and claret out of the 
 perquisites. In the Ordnance department, 
 it was found in Lord Buckingham's time, that 
 the arms, ammunition, and military accoutre- 
 ments, condemned as useless, were stolen 
 out at one gate, brought in at the other, and 
 charged anew to the public account. 
 
 Those were the glorious days of Protestant 
 jobbing — for, let it not be forgot that to this 
 privileged class alone, the robbery of the pub- 
 lic has been always specially intrusted — then 
 was, indeed, the Golden Age of the Ascen- 
 dancy, when jobs and abuses flourished in un- 
 checked luxuriance — when salary disowned all 
 connection with duty, and when Boards of 
 Custom, Boards of Excise, &c., were merely 
 foundations for the support of a certain num- 
 ber of loyal and Protestant gentlemen, who 
 would have considered it a case of " calling 
 
291 
 
 out," to be asked what services they performed 
 for their pay. Ovid has described such an 
 age of gold exactly. 
 
 Poena metusque aberant : nee verba minacia fixo 
 Mie legebantur ; nee supplex turba timebat 
 Judicis ora sui ; sed erant sine vindiee tuti. 
 
 Or thus, in English, for such of my Fa- 
 mily as Latin may not suit : — 
 
 How tranquil then the loyal Placeman's breast. 
 Ere rude Inquiry broke his golden rest. 
 Or cold Commissioners consign' d to fame, 
 In rude Reports, the rauch-wrong'd Jobber's name — 
 Ere Orange Squires were seen, with rueful faces. 
 Round Frankland Lewis, crying " Spare our places j" 
 And Loyalty might yet her votaries solace 
 With funds, uncheck'd by honesty or Wallace ! 
 
 The desperate habits of profusion, into 
 which our gentry were seduced, by this 
 lottery of pensions and places at which 
 all tried their chance, were naturally fol- 
 lowed by a considerable degree of pecu- 
 niary embarrassment, which, like the cause 
 that produced it, soon affected all ranks. 
 That race of httle Protestant gentry, — between 
 whom and the Catholic slave the Pend laws 
 
 o 2 
 
292 
 
 jhad left a chasm, which is not even yet filled 
 up — had joined in this career of place-hunting 
 and extravagance ; and rents were raised, and 
 money was borrowed, to sustain it. Judge- 
 ments, and Mortffafres, and all those other 
 spectral things of the Law, that hover around 
 the ruins of decayed property, were now seen 
 flitting in all directions ; and it is asserted 
 that from about the year 1790, more lands 
 have been sold under decrees, than had been 
 for the preceding hundred years. 
 
 It will not require much ingenuity to show, 
 how favourable such a state of things was to 
 the general views of the Rock family. Often 
 have I lamented that my good old father did 
 not live to see the rapid fulfilment of his pre- 
 dictions, nor witness, at least, the beginning 
 of that splendid career, which his son has 
 now, for near forty years, with but little inter- 
 ruption triumphantly pursued. 
 
 The exorbitant rise of rents and the severe 
 exaction of tithes*, were the grievances that, 
 
 * Mr. Grattan mentions an instance of a living in 
 the disturbed districts, at this time, being raised r»- 
 
293 
 
 in the year 1787, drove the wretched pea- 
 santry of Munster to my banners. 
 
 Lord Clare, who was then Attorney-gene- 
 ral, and, of course, defended the Church, 
 said, "he hieiso the unhappy tenantry were 
 ground to powder by relentless landlords."— 
 Mr. G rattan, on the other hand, proved that 
 " the landlord's over-reaching, compared to 
 tliat of the tithe-farmer, was mercy." No 
 wonder, therefore, that, between both, the 
 wretched people were maddened, to the full 
 pitch that Captain Right (as I was then 
 nick-named by my followers) required. Not 
 that even those double scourges, middlemen 
 and tithe-takers, efficient as they were, could 
 have accomplished the object for me so com- 
 pletely, had not the Government, as usual, 
 come in to their assistance, and, by its pre- 
 mature and unqualified severity, exasperated 
 discontent into frenzy. 
 
 ****** 
 
 pidly from 130/. a-year to 340/.; and another, in the 
 •ame manner, being increased from 300/. to 1,000/. 
 \ The Captain has here, in the original manuscript. 
 
294 
 
 The constancy of our State Doctors to 
 their old remedy, the bayonet, is miraculous. 
 Having exhibited it in 1787 with their accus- 
 tomed vigour and success, they continued so 
 to administer it, at convenient intervals and 
 with increasing exacerbation, till 1 798 — when 
 it brought on that violent, but imperfect, crisis, 
 the Rebellion. They then resumed the same 
 course of physic immediately after the Union, 
 and have persevered in it, only with a greater 
 frequency of doses, down to the present day. 
 — Martial Law and the Insurrection Act 
 having been in force fourteen years out of the 
 four and twenty that have elapsed since that 
 measure. It would take a whole page to 
 enumerate the various forms and names, under 
 which this one, sole specific for all the evils 
 of Ireland has been administered, viz. Peace 
 Preservation Acts, Seizure of Arms Act, 
 
 entered into a long detail of his achievements at this 
 period, under the assumed name of Captain Right : 
 but, as there is but little variety in his manner of re- 
 lating these feats, and the public has long been ac- 
 quainted with the nature of them, I have thought it 
 best to omit the narration altogether. — Editor. 
 
295 
 
 Secret Society Acts, Constabulary Acts, &c. 
 &c. &c. &c. &c. But, as Doctor Ollapod 
 says, " Rhubarb is Rhubarb, call it what 
 you will ; " and there is no disguising by any 
 change of name or phrase, that the bayonet 
 is the sole, active ingredient in all these va- 
 rious formulas. 
 
 When Moliere was asked by Louis XIV. 
 what use he made of his physician, he an- 
 swered — " Nous causons ensemble ; il rn^or- 
 do7ine des remedes—je ne les preiids pas, et 
 je gueris ;" — but, when a mischievous phy- 
 sician, who orders steel in all cases, has the 
 power also of compelling his dose to be 
 swallowed, what is the imfortunate patient 
 to do? 
 
296 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Conversation between the Captain and a Spirit — Tithe 
 systems in England and Ireland — Differences be- 
 tween them — Potatoes — Tithe-farmers — Proctors. 
 — Ariosto — Drivers — Scale of the Irish Hierarchy 
 — Paying Tithe in kind' — Sinbad in the Valley of 
 Diamonds — New Tithe Bill — Remarks on it^ 
 
 If a Spirit on his travels, like Micromegas, 
 were to apply to me for information concerning 
 this part of our planet, and I should tell him — 
 " There is a class of men among us, set apart 
 to instruct the people in religion, and to place 
 before their eyes examples of piety and peace- 
 fulness. In order to qualify them for this mis- 
 sion, and give them, in their respective neigh- 
 bourhoods, that popularity which is necessary 
 to ensure its success, the Law empowers them 
 to seize annually a tenth part of the produce of 
 all the cultivators, however indigent, entrusted 
 to their care. 
 
^97 
 
 *' As this annual depredation is seldom taken 
 in good part, and sometimes even leads to 
 bloodshed and rebellion, the time of the said 
 teachers is almost exclusively occupied, in wran- 
 gling with their pupils'^ and, occasionally, 
 having them shot and hanged— in consequence 
 of which, they have but little leisure left for 
 
 * From a note on a speech of Sir Henry Pamell, 
 in Cobbett's Parliamentary Debates, it appears that 
 in the year 1807, there were in five counties in Ire- 
 land, no less than 1286 actions on cases connected 
 with tithes ; and in the Galway Advertiser of the 
 1 8th of October, 1822, we find the following article: 
 — ** At the quarter-sessions at Gort, one tithe-proc- 
 tor processed eleven hundred persons for tithes. 
 They were all, or most, of the lower order of far- 
 mers or peasants : — the expense of each process 
 about eight shillings." 
 
 Anthony Pearson, in speaking of the law pro- 
 ceedings with respect to tithes, under the Pro- 
 tectorate, says, ** Divers on this account have 
 long lain in the Fleet, and yet are there. And 
 I believe above an hundred suits are in the Ex- 
 chequer depending, and proceedings stopt at this 
 point, the very officers of the court relenting with 
 pity towards such numbers of poor men, brought 
 tyther every term from the most remote parts of the 
 
 o 6 
 
^98 
 
 fessons of religiou, and still less for examples of 
 moderation and Christian charity. 
 
 " We have large law-books filled with cases, 
 arising out of these amiable relations between 
 the teachers and the taught. Yet, so fond are the 
 former of this particular sort of wages of instruc- 
 
 nation, and some of them not for above twelve- 
 pence ; such merciless cruelty lodges in the hearts 
 of many, if not of most, of our pretended Gospel- 
 ministers." 
 
 Milton, too, in speaking of the same reverend 
 tithe-takers, says, ** I omit their violent and irreli- 
 gious exactions, their seizing of pots and pans from 
 the poor, who have as good a right to tithes as they, 
 from some the very beds j their seizing and impri- 
 soning, worse than when the Canon Law was in 
 force; worse than when the wicked sons of Eli were 
 priests. For those sons of Belial, within some limits, 
 made seizure of what they knew was their own by 
 an undoubted law ; but these, from whom there is no 
 sanctuary, seize out of men's ground, out of men's 
 houses, their other goods, of double, sometimes of 
 treble value, for that which, did not covetousness 
 and rapine blind them, they know to be not their 
 own by the Gospel which they preach." — *' Consider- 
 ations touching the likeliest means to remove Hire- 
 llings out of the Church." 
 
^99 
 
 tion, that they not only try to extract it from 
 every thing they can lay their hands on,* but 
 declare daily, monthly, and quarterly, in news- 
 papers, pamphlets, and reviews, that they prefer 
 it to all other modes of getting money, that the 
 wit of legislators or philosophers can devise. 
 
 ^' When questioned as to their reasons for 
 this singular preference, they sometimes say, 
 that it is on account of a certain revelation to 
 Adam, the particulars of which have not trans- 
 pired — at other times, they tell you, that Apollo, 
 and Hercules took the tenth of people's pro- 
 perty, and, therefore, so must they — but the 
 reason most generally and confidently given by 
 them, is, that as teachers of religion, some 
 
 * "The Clergy," says Lord Holt, make every thing 
 titheable ; " but" he adds, " J do not regard that — 
 the Pope, from whom they derive their claim, though 
 they depart from its alleged application, subjected 
 to tithe the gains of the merchant, and the pay of 
 the army : the Canons went further, and held the 
 tithe of fornication and adultery to be the undoubted 
 property of the church." 
 
 Sir Simon Degge in his Chapter " Of what things 
 Tithes shall not be paid," says, " No tithes shall be 
 payable for hounds, apes, popinjays, et simiiiaJ' 
 
300 
 
 hundred years since, shared this portion with 
 the poor, the stranger, and the fatherless, they 
 have now an undoubted and even sacred right, 
 to appropriate the whole of it exclusively to 
 themselves ?' 
 
 If I were to state this to the Spirit, would he 
 not stare ? — and, if he were a Spirit after Mi- 
 cromegas'^s own heart, would he not laugh ? 
 
 Obnoxious and oppressive as Tithes have al- 
 ways been considered in England, there are 
 reasons, manifest at the first glance, why they 
 should be, beyond comparison, a more odious 
 infliction in Ireland. 
 
 In England,* where even abuses are forced 
 to take a natural direction, tithes are paid to 
 an Establishment in which the great majority 
 of the people have a direct interest — while in 
 Ireland, from that unnatural position in 
 which her Protestant Establishment places her, 
 
 * Some of these points of difference between 
 English and Irish tithes, are put strongly in an ex- 
 cellent article upon the State of Ireland, in the In- 
 quirer — for which, I supect, we are indebted to the 
 pen of that enlightened and patriotic member of 
 parliament, Mr. Spring Rice. 
 
301 
 
 thirteen fourteenths of the people are thus taxed 
 for the instruction of the small remaining frac- 
 tion. Thus, to all the ill-blood that this exaction 
 ever engendered in England, between a pastor 
 and flock of the same religion, is added that 
 deep hostility with which the members of a per- 
 secuted faith must ever regard those who have 
 been their bitterest political enemies, and 
 whom they are thus compelled to subsidize for 
 trampling them to the earth. 
 
 '' He, who feedeth a flock (as our Reverend 
 tithe-takers never cease telling us) hath a right 
 to eat of the milk of the flock" — but in Ireland, 
 where divine laws, as well as human, are reversed, 
 it is from a flock which he does not feed, that 
 the unconscionable shepherd extorts his milk. 
 
 When we consider, too, that this proscribed 
 and fleeced race have also their own ministry to 
 support^ and that the poor peasant, placed be- 
 tween two Churches — the one his Good, the 
 other his Evil Genius — is made tributary to 
 both, for his misery * as well as his consolation, 
 and with a blessing ta the one, and a curse to 
 
 * ** Forced consecrations out of another man's 
 estate are no better than forced vows, hateful to 
 
802 
 
 the other, starves between them — can we expect 
 any thing but discord and hate, from a system 
 whose foundations lie so deep in anomaly and 
 injustice,* — or can any modification or compo- 
 
 God who loves a cheerful giver ; but much more 
 hateful wrung out of men's purses to maintain a dis- 
 approved ministry against their conscience ; however 
 unholy, infamous, and dishonourable to his minis- 
 ters, and the free Gospel, maintained in such un- 
 worthy manner, by violence and extortion." 
 
 Milton on Tithes. 
 
 * English legislators can be wise enough every 
 where but in Ireland. In Canada, for instance, Mr. 
 Weld tells us, ** Every religion is tolerated in the 
 fullest sense of the word, and no disqualifications 
 are imposed on any persons on ac< :ount of their re- 
 ligious opinions. The Roman Catholic religion is 
 that of the great majority of the inhabitants, and by 
 the Quebec Bill of 1774, the ecclesiastics of that 
 persuasion are empowered by law to recover all the 
 dues which, previous to that period, they were ac- 
 customed to receive, as well as tithes — that is, from 
 the Roman Catholic inhabitants ; but they cannot 
 ewact any tithes, or dues, from, Protestants, or of lands 
 held by Protestants, although formerly such lands 
 might have been subjected to dues and tithes, for 
 ,the support of the Roman Catholic church.'* 
 
303 
 
 sition render innoxious, an inversion so monstrous 
 of all the laws of reason and of nature? 
 
 Beside this radical difference in the very 
 principle of the tax, as applied to the people of 
 England and Ireland, there are others which 
 contribute to render the mode of its operation 
 and enforcement, incomparably more odious 
 and intolerable in the latter country. 
 
 In England, the burthen is equally distri- 
 buted among the farming classes — while in 
 Ireland, where there is no Agistment tithe, it 
 rests almost exclusively upon the lowest orders. 
 In a Tithe-book, now lying before me, which I 
 seized some time since among the baggage of a 
 defeated Proctor, I find three gentlemen, hold- 
 ing fifteen hundred acres of the best land in the 
 parish, charged for their tithe only four pounds 
 
 However absurd some of the old ecclesiastical 
 Canons may be considered, it would have been well 
 if the following principle laid down by the Canon- 
 ists of the 11th and 12th century, had been con- 
 sulted with respect to Ireland — " It is expressly held 
 against the divine law, to convey tithes to any 
 other church than where the owner commonly re- 
 ceives his soul's food." — Selden. 
 
S04 
 
 among them ; while a poor Catholic farmer in 
 the neighbourhood, cultivating twenty acres of 
 tillage, is made to pay for his corn and flax 
 eight pounds — being twice as much towards 
 the support of the Protestant Church as these 
 three Protestant gentlemen contribute all to- 
 gether. There is, indeed, nothing more com- 
 mon than to see the rich grazier, paying almost 
 nothing to his own Clergyman, while the poor 
 Catholic in his neighbourhood, who raises (we 
 will say) five acres of corn, three for the 
 market and two for his own support, is obliged, 
 out of this pittance, to pay the Clergymen of 
 both modes of worship.* 
 
 But there is still a more cruel exaction. The 
 potatoe, the sole sustenance of the wretched 
 peasantry of the South, is also pressed into the 
 service of the Church — and there is not a parson 
 in that part of the country, who does not live 
 by the starvation of others.f Imagination, 
 
 ♦ See " Letter from the Right Honourable Deni* 
 Brown, on the State of Ireland."— p. 11. 
 
 t Mr. Grattan mentions several instances, in the 
 South of Ireland, of enormous charges made for 
 tithes in years of famine, and pours out, justly, 
 the whole thunder of his indignation against the 
 
305 
 
 indeed, can hardly bring together a more in- 
 congruous compound, than the lofty Churchman, 
 at one moment exalting his brow in spiritual 
 authority, and, at the next, stooping to ransack 
 the potatoe-pit of the cottager : 
 
 Quantum vertice ad auras 
 ^therias, tantum radice in Tartara tendit. 
 
 Firgil. 
 
 Clergyman, who thus *' takes advantage of a famine — 
 brings up, as it were, the rear of divine vengeance, 
 and becomes, in his own person, the last great 
 scourge of the husbandman." 
 
 From a speech made by a Protestant gentleman, 
 Mr. CoUes, at one of the late Tithe meetings, it 
 would appear that examples of such inhumanity 
 are not infrequent. *' in 1816," he said, " they 
 could not but recollect, that one half of the crop was 
 completely destroyed, by the heavy rains which fell 
 incessantly during the harvest season, and the other 
 half so materially damaged, as really to injure life 
 while it seemed to sustain it. At that unexampled 
 period of public calamity, when their fellow-crea- 
 tures were perishing every where around them with 
 hunger and disease, did the tithe-owners, from hu- 
 manity at least, if not from justice, reduce their im- 
 positions, in proportion to the injury sustained by 
 the crops ? No — far from abating one jot of either 
 
306 
 
 We have here, too, another instance of the 
 different point of view, in which the Clergy- 
 regard their own prescriptive rights and those 
 of others. 1 have already shown, with what 
 invincible steadiness (though so ready to set aside 
 any modus in favour of others) they continue to 
 profit by their own miserable modus of First- 
 fruits. And, here, in the instance of the potatoe- 
 tythe, — indignant as their Reverences have al- 
 ways been at the least innovation upon their own 
 ancient rights — we find them quietly taking pos- 
 session of an article, which neither law, nor old 
 usage recognizes as titheable,* and establishing, 
 by means of their own tribunals, a claim to it 
 through the greater part of the South of 
 Ireland. 
 
 the rate or rigour of their exactions, they levied 
 their usual charges with their usual severity.'* 
 
 * In the same manner the Clergy of Ireland, at 
 one time, illegally demanded tithe for turf. ** I 
 have two decrees'* said Mr. Grattan, " in my hand, 
 from the vicarial court of Cloyne j the first excom- 
 municating one man, the second excommunicating 
 four men, most illegally, most arbitrarily, for refus- 
 ing to pay tithe of turf." 
 
307 
 
 Accordingly, in that potatoe-tithed region, 
 have I always fixed my head-quarters of Rebel- 
 lion ; and if, by good luck, the encroaching 
 spirit of the Church — which, modern as the 
 introduction of the potatoe is, has contrived 
 thus effectually to " mark it for her own," — 
 should succeed in extending this tithe into the 
 other provinces, the parsons and I shall, at 
 length, like Jove and Caesar, divide the empire 
 of the whole island between us. 
 
 The employment of tithe-farmers and proc- 
 tors is another part of the machinery of this 
 tax, from which England, luckily for the 
 repose of her farmers, is exempt. * Surveyors 
 of tithes, indeed, have been introduced into that 
 country of late years ; but, if they deserve the 
 " lamentable" character given of them by Dr. 
 
 * Not wholly, however. In one of the Devon 
 Agricultural Reports, we read, — " In no part of 
 England can the question of tithes be agitated with 
 a less colourable pretext, than generally in the County 
 of Devon. Some few instances of tyranny and ex- 
 tortion have occurred within this district, but these 
 Avere occasioned by the tithe-proctors, or other per- 
 sons renting the great tithes from the church of 
 Exeter." 
 
308 
 
 Cove, they must differ essentially from Irish 
 valuators—" they have been lamentably found 
 (he says) by their employers to be at all times 
 disposed to favour the tithe-payers." In Ire- 
 land, however, by dint of poundage fees and 
 patronage, Dr. Cove's brethren manage to render 
 valuators much more orthodox. 
 
 Among us, the Tithe farmer is a sort of 
 convenient step, by which livings are enabled to 
 mount in value, without any very violent effort 
 on the part of their possessors. For instance, 
 an Incumbent farms his tithes to some neigh- 
 bour, who, by a skilful application of that 
 mechanic power called the Screw, increases the 
 receipts sufficiently to afford an income for 
 himself as well as the Parson. The next 
 Incumbent claims as his due the whole amount 
 received by this Tithe-farmer, and, in his turn, 
 employs another Professor of the art of Screw- 
 ing, who contrives, by the same process, to 
 raise the value of the living still higher, and 
 transmits it, thus improved, to the Incumbent 
 who follows. So on, the mountain of oppres- 
 sion is heaped up, while those prostrate Giants, 
 the People, groan and heave beneath it. 
 
309 
 
 Of the Tithe-proctor I would willingly speak 
 as becomes a generous enemy, in consideration 
 of the many hard-fought fields in which we 
 have met together; and, without comparing 
 his humbler efforts in the cause of Discord to 
 those of his superiors — of an Archbishop, or 
 even a Chancellor — I must say, that, in all the 
 minor requisites for teasing and goading a 
 people, he performs his part in a manner worthy 
 of the system to which he belongs. The 
 harassing assiduity with which he hovers round 
 the crop — the perverseness with which he con- 
 ceals the amount of his demand, lest the farmer^ 
 apprised of its enormity, should proffer the 
 tithe in kind — his promptitude at a Citation, 
 and his delight at a Distress, all are perfect in 
 their kind, and would turn Job himself into 
 a Rockite. 
 
 Ariosto, in describing Discord, whom the 
 angel Michael finds in a church, where he had 
 gone, in vain, to look for Silence, thus equips 
 her:-^ 
 
 Di citatorie plene, e di libelle, 
 D^essamini, e di carte di procure 
 Havea le mani, e il sen, e gran fastelli 
 
310 
 
 Di chiose, di consigli, e di letture ; 
 Per cui le faculta de' poverelli 
 Non sono mai nella citta sicure. 
 
 Cant. 14. 
 
 that is (as Ariosto might describe the same 
 Church personage in Ireland) — 
 
 And Discord had her hands and bosom full 
 
 Of Tithe citations. Proctors' bills. Distresses, — 
 Libels, red-hot from mad -'s scull, — 
 
 Pert Charges of Archbishops — pamphlets dull 
 
 By Reverend F. T. C. D. A. double S's— 
 And all the various boons the Church dispenses, 
 To drive us, paupers, out of our seven senses!* 
 
 After the Proctor, the next link in this 
 ecclesiastical chain — and the lowest, if the hang- 
 man does not claim that place — is the Driver. 
 
 * The following more faithful version is from the 
 forth-coming Cantos of Mr. W. Rose's spirited Trans- 
 lation. 
 
 Examinations, summonses, and store 
 
 Of writs and letters of attorney, she 
 In both her hands, and in her bosom bore, 
 And acts and deeds, the law^s artillery : 
 Against which arms the substance of the poor 
 
 Can never safe in walled city be. 
 Before, behind her, and about her wait 
 Attorney, notary, and advocate. 
 
Sll 
 
 The office of this personage is (under the de- 
 cree of a Court,* where Tithe-owners are the 
 
 * See for a statement of the exactions of these 
 Courts, and of the iniquities of the Tythe system in 
 general throughout Ireland, a Pamphlet just pub- 
 lished, intituled, " A Report of the Committee of 
 the Parish of Blackrath, in the county of Kilkenny.'* 
 The following is a specimen of the expenses to which 
 a poor man is put by a Citation to the Bishop's Court : 
 *' The whole sum in dispute is 6s. ; the fee to coun- 
 sel is a guinea. The very first step, therefore, that 
 the poor man takes for his defence, he has to pay 
 nearly four times the amount of the demand that he 
 contests. He has next to pay two Citations for his 
 two witnesses 13^. 6d. — that is to say, 12^. 6d. for 
 the first, and Is. for the second.'* The trial generally 
 ends in a decree against the unfortunate peasant, 
 which is followed up by a monition — and the costs of 
 both are stated to add near 2/. 16*. 8d. to his losses* 
 He is then handed over to the secular arm ; " The 
 parson processes his wretched parishioner to the 
 Civil-bill Court : there he is decreed, as a matter of 
 course, without being even allowed (strange to say !) 
 to enter into the merits of his case. And what 
 costs follow ? The costs of the decree are I*. \\d. ; 
 the costs of. the warrant Is. \d. ; the fees of the 
 Bailiff who executes the warrants are 2^. 4d. ; the 
 fees of the two keepers who watch the Distress for 
 
31^ 
 
 judges, and where a Citation for a tithe of 
 185. lOd. costs the defendant £2 10s.)* to 
 
 four days and nights amount (at 2*. 6d. a day for 
 each) to IL ; and lastly, the Auctioneer's fees come 
 to 6s. 3d. making altogether the sum of 61. I2s. 2d., 
 so that the Clergyman sells the whole crop to sa- 
 tisfy the Tithes, and turns the miserable wretch, his 
 wife and children, to the road, to beg or to steal, or 
 to starve. High-spirited as the poor Irishman may 
 be, he will never have the courage to renew the con- 
 test against such powerful odds " 
 
 * So stated by Sir Henry ParneJl, July 6, 1820. 
 I have given this more moderate estimate in order to 
 be on the safe side, though convinced, myself, that 
 the Pamphlet quoted in the preceding note has not 
 over-stated the enormity of these proceedings. 
 
 See, for an account of the tyranny and extortion 
 of these Ecclesiastical Courts, Mr. Grattan's admir- 
 able Speech on Tithes— one of the few specimens of 
 Parliamentary eloquence, that deserve to be placed 
 beside the great master-pieces of Burke. 
 
 A Reverend pamphleteer, whom I have more than 
 once quoted, {" Case of the Church of Ireland 
 stated ") has had the good taste and feeling to refer 
 to the glorious era of our great Patriot's fame, as 
 *' the loquacious days of Mr. Grattan !" This is 
 quite worthy of the University, to which, I undei^ 
 stand, the Reverend writer belongs — and which once 
 
313 
 
 drive away the cattle of the insolvent farmer, 
 or — as in the Rev. Mr. Morrit's case — to 
 " distrain five sheep for a tithe of five shillings, 
 and buy them himself, under the distress, for a 
 shilling each afterwards." 
 
 The ascent from these minor agents of the 
 Irish hierarchy, up through the gradations of 
 curate, vicar, rector, &c. into the loftiest regions 
 of Episcopacy and Primacy, resembles that 
 Scale of Being, which Locke supposes to exist 
 in the Universe, ascending gradually from the 
 lowest to the sublimest and most erherialized 
 essences ; and, between the two extremes — the 
 Driver, who, for the good of the Church, puis 
 the Catholic's cow into the pound, and the Pre- 
 late who, for the same pious purpose, keeps the 
 Catholic himself out of the Constitution — 
 there is a sympathy of sentiment and unity of 
 design, which is felt through all the interme- 
 diate range, and, like the sensitiveness of the 
 spider, '* lives along the line." 
 
 expressed its feeling towards the same illustrious 
 mail, in an equally dignified and tasteful manner, 
 by turning his picture in one of the public Halls 
 upside down ! 
 
314 
 
 Of the detestation, in which the payment of 
 tithes is held, independently of its pressure 
 as a heavy and unequal tax, we cannot require 
 a more convincing proof, than is furnished 
 by a fact which Lord Maryborough mentioned, 
 on the occasion of Sir Henry Parnell's motion 
 on the subject of Tithes. " I asked," says 
 his Lordship, " an Honourable friend of mine 
 this morning, a part of whose estate is tithe- 
 free, what was the difference of the rent which 
 he received for his land that was tithe-free, and 
 that which was not ? He told me he received 
 ten shillings an acre more for the land that was 
 tithe-free than he did for the other. I then 
 asked him, what was the amount of the tithe 
 on that part of his land of equal quality and 
 contiguous to the other, which was subject to 
 it ? He said about fourteen-pence an acre ! " 
 
 From this we perceive, so odious is the nature 
 of this tax, that, without any other difference 
 between the two parts of the land, than that 
 one was exempt from the harassing visitation 
 of the Tithe-proctor, ten shillings more was 
 given for this precious immunity alone — or, in 
 other words, that the farmer willingly paid 
 
315 
 
 8s. lOd. in the form of rent, to escape Is. 2d. 
 in the hateful form of tithe. This sample 
 alone, though quoted by Lord Maryborough 
 and the Bishop of Ferns for a very different 
 purpose, speaks volumes as to the feeling of 
 repugnance, with which this " Therumah of an 
 evil eye" is regarded. 
 
 There is yet another strong proof of the hard- 
 ship and disgust, which the present mode of 
 paying these dues produces. The practice of 
 setting out the tithe in kind, which in England 
 is considered a grievance by the farmers, and 
 accordingly very seldom adopted,* would,among 
 us, be hailed as a most welcome relief -|- from 
 all the worrying process of valuations, citations, 
 promissory notes, &c. to which the mode of 
 
 * 111 looking through the County Reports of 
 England, we find the instances of tithe taken in 
 kind but rare. Thus, in one of the Bedford Agri- 
 cultural Reports — '* From minute investigation, not 
 one rector in ten takes his tithe in kind, and I 
 heard of only one or two vicars who did so— an4 
 probably they were driven to this measure by the 
 stubborn opposition of their parishioners." 
 
 t Among the late efforts at composition, under 
 
 p 2 
 
316 
 
 composition under the auspices of the proctor 
 leads — and to be allowed the free exercise of 
 this right of paying in kind (which, though 
 the law permits, the Ecclesiastical Courts ob- 
 struct and frustrate)* is, at present — next to the 
 supreme bliss of not paying any such tax at all 
 — the chief ambition of the great majority of 
 tithe-payers. 
 
 Combination in serving notices is what the 
 Parson dreads — and the Parson, I own, is fully 
 justified in dreading every possible inconve- 
 
 the new Tithe Bill, there is an instance of a Rev. 
 Gentleman who having refused 1,200/. a year, as 
 being an inadequate compensation for his tithes, was 
 required by his parishioners, in consequence, to re- 
 ceive the payment of them in kind — but this he also 
 refused, and politely answered all the notices he re- 
 ceived, by citations to the Bishop's Court. 
 
 * Frequently, too, when the poor man sets out 
 his tithe in kind, ** the Clergy first suffer the tenth 
 of the crop to rot on the ground, and then recover 
 the amount of it in their own Court — thus compel- 
 ling the peasant to pay the same tithes twice over ; 
 once in kind, and again in money." — Statement 
 relative to the Bishop' i Court. 
 
317 
 
 nlence that his affectionate flock can inflict on 
 him.=^ Wealthy as most of these Reverend 
 persons are, there is no denying that they earn 
 their opulence dearly. They are like Sinbad 
 in the Valley of Diamonds— walking amidst 
 wealth, but not at all comfortable. I have my- 
 self seen the x\rchbishop of Cashel,t taking 
 his morning drive protected by a large escort of 
 dragoons; and I could name more than one 
 worthy Rector, whose pistols are, at least, as 
 
 * A specimen of the way in which a spiritual 
 teacher may be annoyed by his pupils, in drawing 
 the tithe in kind, is found in an Agricultural Report 
 of the County of Hants. The farmer gave the 
 Clergyman notice, that he was going to draAv a 
 field of turnips on a certain day. The clergyman 
 accordingly sent his team and servant at the time 
 appointed, when the former drew ten turnips and 
 desired the other to take one of them — saying he 
 would not draw any more that day, but would let 
 him know when he did, 
 
 f Not the present Archbishop — no — ^reprobate as 
 I am, I can still admire candour, liberality, and hu- 
 manity; and to such Churchmen as Lawrence, Jebb, 
 and the late Archbishop of Tuam, I am ready to 
 give a Safe-conduct through my realms at any time. 
 
318 
 
 necessary a companion of his walks as his 
 prayer-book. 
 
 On this very subject of setting out the tithe 
 in kind, such a charitable feeling is there 
 abroad towards the Church, that some persons 
 of considerable legal acuteness have taken the 
 trouble of drawing up a code of instructions for 
 the peasantry,* by which they may, without dis- 
 turbing a single curl of the Law, combine against 
 the Parson, " sans que celaparaisse," — and make 
 the collection of tithes in this way almost as 
 harassing to him, as his own favourite mode of 
 enforcing it has always been to them. 
 
 With respect to the new Tithe Bill of Mr. 
 Goulburn, which is at present running the 
 gauntlet through the vestries of the South, I 
 confess I do not apprehend much danger to the 
 Rock interest from its success. Its first and 
 obvious effect is, to increase the wealth and 
 power of the Church — which is, as Shakespeare 
 
 To guard a title that was rich before. 
 To gild refined gold and paint the (orange) lily. 
 * See some very clever Letters to this effect, 
 which appeared last Summer, in the Southern Re- 
 porter, and which well deserve to be collected. 
 
319 
 
 To say nothing of the tender care that has 
 been shown for the interests of the Clergy, by 
 taking, as a standard of composition, the aver- 
 age of the most high-priced years — that rich 
 Agistment Tithe, of which they were deprived 
 in 1735, and which abridged their incomes, it 
 was supposed, by one fifth, will, by this act, if 
 put in force, be virtually restored to them. 
 Thus, that Paradise* of fair demesnes and lawns, 
 
 * The deep feeling with which the loss of this 
 Tithe is remembered, at a distance of nearly eighty 
 years, may be judged from the pathetic and indig- 
 nant terms, in which the Right Reverend author of a 
 late pamphlet alludes to it. " If a tyrannical power 
 has repelled the clergyman from the rich and ex- 
 tensive demesnes, which should have contributed 
 largely to his income, &c. &c." — Appendix to a Se- 
 cond Edition of an "Inquiry," &c. 
 
 The misrepresentations in this Appendix with 
 respect to Lay Impropriators, are such as 
 might be expected from the candour of a wri- 
 ter, who thinks Adam Smith a bad authority on the 
 subject of tithes, because he was the friend of 
 Hume ! — Far from wishing to " separate the cases 
 of the Lay Impropriator and the Clergyman," the 
 Duke of Devonshire, in presenting the petition from 
 the Corporation of Waterford in 1822, expressed 
 
320 
 
 from which the " flaming brand " of the Irish 
 Parliament chased them — those 
 
 fields, beloved in vain, 
 Where once the c?<reless priesthood stray'd, 
 
 and for the loss of which neither the fruits of 
 increasing tillage, nor the Unions of many 
 Parishes, nor the grants of many Parliaments, 
 have been able to console them, will, under the 
 kindly auspices of Mr. Goulburn, again be 
 enjoyed. 
 
 The additional powers given to the Parson 
 by this Act are also considerable. In the first 
 place, the owner of the soil, if not a farmer 
 himself, is excluded from all interference in the 
 disposal of his own property, and the Incum- 
 bent and his parishioners are left to settle the 
 whole matter between them. In the next place, 
 the parson is authorized, for the recovery of his 
 tithe, to distrain, and exercise all the other 
 
 his readiness, as an Impropriator of more than 20 
 parishes, to make every sacrifice on his part for a 
 satisfactory arrangement of tithes. Lord Lansdowne 
 has frequently made the same declaration ; and few, 
 I think, will join the Right Reverend writer, in 
 cjuestioning the sincerity of these two noble persons. 
 
S21 
 
 powers, actually exercised by a landlord for the 
 recovery of his rent. In the third place, the 
 precedence given to tithes over all other claims, 
 of rent, family incumbrances, &c. &c. leaves 
 to the landlord, whose tenant" has been a de- 
 faulter under the composition, only the gleanings 
 of the parson's Distress to satisfy his demand 
 for rent. Such are a few of the features of 
 this Bill, by which our sagacious rulers propose 
 to moderate the exactions of the Church, and 
 put an end to the dissatisfaction of tithe-payers. 
 Though but little inclined to pity our Landed 
 Gentry, for any sacrifices they may be forced to 
 make to their starving tenantry, I cannot but 
 confess that the encroachments of this measure 
 on their property, are such as to give very rea- 
 sonable grounds of complaint. Selfish and 
 unprincipled as was the vote of 1735, by which 
 the Commons of Ireland transferred the bur- 
 then of tithe from their own rich pastures and 
 demesnes to the con-acre and potatoe-garden of 
 the cottager, it was yet confirmed and made 
 a law of the land by the Act of Union. 
 Its confirmation was, indeed, one among the 
 many foul bribes, out of which that unnatural 
 
 p 5 
 
322 
 
 measure arose — like Frankenstein's ghastly 
 patch-work, made up of contributions from the 
 whole charnel-house of political corruption. 
 
 Under the security of this arrangement, 
 many who did not share in its infamy, have 
 since taken and lett farms, bought and sold 
 lands — without a view to the possibility of any 
 future conjuror, like Mr. Goulburn, again 
 evoking the spirit of the Agistment tithe out 
 of that " vasty deep," in which, with Ireland's 
 independence, it seemed to have been laid 
 asleep for ever. Yet now, after a lapse of four 
 and twenty years, forth comes the Secretary, 
 holding the Parson by the hand, and, re-opening 
 to him, in generous contempt of the law, all 
 those " fresh fields and pastures new " which 
 the Act of Union had pronounced to be sacred 
 from him for ever, exclaims 
 
 I nunc, magnificos victor molire triumphos, 
 Cinge comam lauro ; votaque redde Jovi. 
 
 Go now, in triumph tread the Squire's domains. 
 And thank the Gods and Goulburn for thy gains. 
 
 Thus it is that one injustice generates an- 
 other, and that the breed is propagated, with 
 more than leporine fecundity, through every sue- 
 
cessive measure which these third-rate Legisla- 
 tors, these Statesmen in waitings are sent to in- 
 flict upon Ireland. 
 
 If the poor tenantry were likely to profit by 
 this infraction of justice towards the landlord — 
 if the advantage that ought to arise to the 
 small cultivator, from a more equal distribution 
 of the burden which now falls exclusively upon 
 him, were really and practically to accrue from 
 this measure — I should say, " do wrong,"*^ for 
 once, " with a right cause" — break as many 
 Articles of the Union as you please — ^invest the 
 parson with a tenth of the fee of every estate in 
 Ireland — do any thing, so you lighten the 
 load of misery, which at present weighs down 
 the peasantry to the very earth. 
 
 But the fact is, the great increase of the 
 general amount of tithe which this Act must 
 produce — together with the summary powers 
 given to the parson for the enforcement of his 
 full demand — will render the pressure of the 
 tax intolerable to the extensive farmer, from 
 whom the miserable cottiers hold their small 
 spots of land ; and it will only be by raising the 
 rents on the latter, — if, indeed, the back of 
 
misery can bear any addition without breaking 
 — he can hope to meet the increased demands 
 upon his means, or keep his property out of the 
 fangs of that law harpy, Distress. Thus, the 
 trifling advantage gained in one quarter (for to 
 the small farmer of from 5 to 20 acres the Bill 
 may bring some relief) is more than counter- 
 balanced by increased misery in another. 
 
 The potatoe-garden, too, that last boundary 
 between the peasant and famine — which, every- 
 where, but in the South, is still kept sacred from 
 the Clergy — will, by the applotments under 
 this Act, wherever they exist, be swept into 
 the general mass of contribution, towards the 
 further enrichment of the Protestant Church 
 of Ireland. 
 
 I have here spoken of this measure, as any 
 lover of tranquillity might, who wished to see 
 some more rational remedy for the discontent 
 that reigns among us. But, speaking in my 
 own person as Captain Rock, I must say 
 that, though perfectly satisfied with the results 
 of the old system, I am equally ready to try 
 this, or any other new strain of discord, which 
 may be struck up for us by our State musicians 
 
325 
 
 — whose ideas of a concert, especially among 
 themselves, seem to have been founded upon 
 that famous charivai z of Rousseau at Lausanne, 
 in which no two instruments were upon the 
 same scent. 
 
 It will be perceived that the capabilities of 
 the Bill for all purposes of discontent are in- 
 finite. Indeed, the Clergy are, at present, the 
 only class of persons satisfied with it — though, 
 on the first announcement of the intended in- 
 novation, their alarm for the " silver shrines'*' of 
 their Great Diana was so strong, as even to 
 bring forth an address from the Archbishops and 
 Bishops, declaring that the measure " would be 
 unquestionably destructive of the independence 
 of the Church Establishment, and, in their judg- 
 ment, equally destructive of its respectability, 
 its utility, and its permanence." 
 
 This was a pretty strong declaration of the 
 clerical feeling on the subject, and it was thought 
 that a compulsory clause would be necessary — 
 a sort of" douce violence''' — to compel these Re- 
 verend persons to avail themselves of the Act. 
 As soon, however, as they found out, from a 
 nearer acquaintance with the measure, that, so 
 
far from injuring their silver Diana in the least, 
 its object was to make her even more silver than 
 before, their clamours against the Bill were at 
 once turned into activity ybr it — they were the 
 first to apply to the Lord Lieutenant for powers 
 to act under it, and they have been the life and 
 soul of all its movements through the vestries 
 ever since — claiming, of course, in most cases, 
 the full average, and expressing their regret 
 that, under the Act, they were not " at liberty"" 
 to take less. 
 
 How far such open and officious zeal for the 
 measure is decently reconcileable with the opi- 
 nion expressed of it by the Prelates, it is not 
 for me to inquire. But, prompt as the clergy 
 have thus naturally shown themselves, to take 
 advantage of all the worldly benefits of the Bill, 
 I rather think that in their hearts they agree 
 with the Archbishops and Bishops ; and will not 
 easily forgive the profanation which the Taber- 
 nacle has suffered, in being touched, even for 
 the sake of enriching it, by the unholy hand 
 of the Law. It is said of a certain King that, 
 on being once saved from falling by the vigorous 
 grasp of one of his attendants, he so far forgot 
 
327 
 
 the value of the service in the fatniharity of the, 
 means, as to cry out pettishly, when restored 
 to his equilibrium, " never touch a King" — -and, 
 in the same manner, I suspect, the Irish clergy 
 will resent the violation, even while they profit 
 by it. It is the first direct interference of the 
 Legislature with the jus divinum of their pro- 
 perty, and they naturally feel it may not be 
 the last. 
 
 Hae nugae in seria ducent. 
 
 i. e. in English. 
 
 The hand that touches Tithes may, when it suits, — 
 Prodigious boldness! — meddle with First Fruits ! 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 1793—1796. 
 
 The Captain again alarmed hy some symptoms of 
 wisdom in the government — his fears proved to be 
 groundless — Montaigne^ s tailor — Lord Fitzu'ilUam 
 recalled — Lord Camden appointed — Concessions 
 in 1 793 — rendered of little avail by the Orange As- 
 cendancy — Map of the Moon— Corporation spirit 
 — Catholic Emancipation — TJie Captain' s gratitude 
 to his friends J Mr. Peel, Lord Eldon, 8fc. Sfc. 
 
 " As long as Millions shall kneel down 
 " To ask of Thousands for their own, 
 " While Thousands proudly turn away, 
 " And to the Millions answer ' Nay!* 
 *' So long the merry reign shall be 
 " Of Captain Rock and his family !*' 
 
 This important part of our family Prophecy 
 (which cannot be too often before the eyes of 
 the reader) seemed placed in some degree of 
 jeopardy by the concessions to the Catholics in 
 1793; and, still more, by the hope of their 
 
329 
 
 complete emancipation, which, under the go- 
 vernment of Lord Fitzwilliam, was awakened 
 in all hearts — solely, it would seem, for the pur- 
 pose of being wantonly extinguished again. 
 
 Notwithstanding my father's repeated warn- 
 ings to me, never to let my confidence in the 
 Rock cause be shaken by any momentary ap- 
 pearances of justice and liberality in the Govern- 
 ment, I confess myself to have been one among 
 the many who were at this period deceived — and 
 who thought that it was, at last, really the in- 
 tention of our rulers to remove all the remain- 
 ing fetters of the Catholics, and thus alienate 
 to the Crown the allegiance of the great ma- 
 jority of my followers. 
 
 In the first place, I knew that if the peace 
 and security of the country, were objects at all 
 likely to weigh, in the minds of such statesmen, 
 against their old love of misgovernment and 
 their rooted passion for pains and penalties, 
 there never was a moment when redress of 
 grievances was more necessary — not only to 
 satisfy the just claims of a great portion of the 
 people, but to disperse the elements of a con- 
 spiracy then known to be forming, and profess- 
 
330 
 
 ing to embrace in its circle all ranks and sects of 
 Irishmen. 
 
 The Roman Catholics had, as yet, held off 
 from this confederacy. The partial concessions 
 of 1793, however ungraciously bestowed, had 
 awakened a feeling of loyalty throughout that 
 body — a feeling, born in gratitude, and kept 
 alive by hope — which not even the seduction of 
 those fair republican theoiies, then adopted with 
 such enthusiasm by the Protestants and Pres- 
 byterians of the North, could weaken or dis- 
 turb. The truth is, they had stood too long in 
 the darkness of proscription, to bear at once 
 so full an illumination of liberty, as their more 
 daring and intelligent fellow countrymen would 
 let in upon them ; and preferred gradually 
 feeling their own way into light, to the risks 
 which a bolder struggle would incur, and which 
 they had been too long slaves to have the hardi- 
 hood to encounter. 
 
 Judging by the ordinary rules of common 
 sense (which is a test, however, never to be 
 applied to the administration of affairs in Ire- 
 land), it seemed to be a matter of the most ^^tal 
 importance to the State, to keep these humble 
 
331 
 
 aspirants for freedom still steady in the paths 
 of loyalty — preventing them, by a prompt re- 
 moval of their wrongs, from falling into the 
 arms of those who were bidding high for their 
 alliance, and to whose conspiracy their alliance 
 was, indeed, an indispensable object, as alone 
 furnishing that numerical and physical strength, 
 without which their own plans of rebellion and 
 revolution would have been mere dreams. 
 
 All these considerations appeared to me to 
 make up such a strong case of self-interest on 
 the side of justice, that — notwithstanding the 
 old antipathy of our rulers to the latter quality, 
 — I thought it possible that a selfish regard for 
 peace and their own safety would prevail, and 
 that they were, actually and truly, about to make 
 lasting friends of the Catholics. 
 
 But in this I was mistaken. " I have an 
 honest lad for my tailor" says Montaigne, 
 '' whom I never knew guilty of a single truth 
 — no, not even when it would have been to his 
 advantage f' and just so has it ever been with 
 the Irish Government — they have shown them- 
 selves incapable of performing an act of justice. 
 
332 
 
 even when it was decidedly and obviously for 
 their advantage. 
 
 In order, too, to render the disappointment 
 more galling to the Catholics — to treat them 
 according to the eagle's mode of breaking the 
 tortoise, and carry their hearts up high into the 
 regions of hope, only that they might be dashed 
 down more effectually afterwards — all the pre- 
 liminaries of their Emancipation were gone 
 through with the most imposing solemnity. 
 The Duke of Portland had stipulated, on his 
 coalescing with Mr. Pitt, for a complete change 
 in the mode of governing Ireland* — which he 
 pronounced (as he well might) tobe " execrable," 
 and full of danger, not only to Ireland, but to 
 the empire itself Lord Fitzwilliam, the poli- 
 
 * " When the Duke of Portland and his friends 
 were to be enticed into a coalition with iMr. Pitt's 
 administration, it was necessary to hold out such 
 lures as would make the coalition palatable. If the 
 general management and superintendance of Ireland 
 had not been offered to his Grace, that coalition 
 could never have taken place." Letter from LoriJ 
 Fitzwilliam to Lord Carlisle. 
 
333 
 
 tical friend of Mr. Grattan, Mr. Ponsonby, 
 and all those who had exerted themselves most 
 strenuously for the entire Emancipation of the 
 Catholics, was the person selected to carry the 
 meditated reforms into effect. The Beresford 
 faction, which, for years, had made a job of all 
 Ireland, was threatened with dismissal. Grat- 
 tan — the Diomede of the Catholic cause, upon 
 whose helm the unwearied light * of wisdom 
 ever shone — was seen in the van of the new 
 Administration. The Act of total Enfranchise- 
 ment was already in progress — scarce a murmur 
 of dissatisfaction was heard abroad, and even 
 the accustomed croak of the Corporation was 
 weak and solitary — when, just at this moment 
 of hope and triumph, while the great Drama of 
 public pacification was proceeding happily to its 
 close, the stage became suddenly darkened 
 round the actors — the principal personage. Lord 
 Fitzwilliam, was mysteriously spirited away 
 from the scene, f and the curtain fell on the 
 
 * Axa^uarov Trwp. Homer. 
 
 t No hberal Lord Lieutenant has ever been suffered 
 to remain long in Ireland. Sir Antony Bellingham 
 was recalled, after the death of HenrvSth, ** for not 
 
hopes of the Catholics, if we aiay believe Mr. 
 Peel, for ever ! 
 
 In recounting such instances of gross and 
 wanton perfidy, it is impossible even for me to 
 feel otherwise than deeply serious. " The 
 man," says Cicero, ^' who could laugh on such 
 occasions, is no true citizen." 
 
 It is needless to add what were the necessary 
 consequences of this insulting mockery of a 
 nation's claims and hopes. The Catholics 
 carried their despair and their numbers into the 
 ranks of the United Irishmen^ — Lords Cam- 
 
 Rufl&ciently oppressing the Irish." Sir John Perrot, 
 in the reign of Elizabeth, was removed for the same 
 reason ; and, of Lord Radnor, who was Lord Lieu- 
 tenant in the time of Charles 2nd, Lord Orford says 
 — " we are not told how he disappointed the King's 
 expectations, probably not by too much complai- 
 sance, nor why his administration, which Burnet 
 calls * just' was disliked. If it is true that he was a 
 good governor, the presumption will be, that his rule 
 was not disliked by those to whom but from whom 
 he was sent." 
 
 * The United Irishmen (according to the memoir 
 drawn up by Emmet) *' used the recal of Lord 
 Pitzwilliam and the rejection of his measures, to 
 
den and Castlereagh took the places of Lord 
 Fitzwilliam and Mr. Grattan, and the system 
 of whipping, burning, and free-quarters began. 
 As the concessions of 1793 form the sum 
 total of the liberty of the Catholics at present 
 — notwithstanding the promises held out to 
 them at the Union, and broken as magnani- 
 mously as every other promise— let us see 
 whether the liberality of the '' Thousands" to 
 the " Millions," at that period, was such as to 
 alarm Captain Rock for the continuance of 
 his " merry reign ;" — always recollecting that 
 those liberalities were brought forth in a moment 
 of panic ; and that most of them have been since 
 so checked and stunted by their unnatural pa- 
 rents, as to resemble the curse-stricken progeny 
 of the countess of Hainault — numerous, but 
 abortive, and mere lusus natura of legislation. 
 
 In the first place, with respect to the Elective 
 Franchise :-^By conceding the power o£ electing, 
 and withholding the right of representing, the 
 Act of 1793 admitted all the worst part of the 
 
 cement together in political union the Catholic and 
 Protestant masses.^* 
 
336 
 
 Catholic population into the Constitution, and 
 kept the best out of it. Thus, as the Emperor 
 Commodus was said to be mischievous even in 
 his jests, the Legislature of Ireland has contrived 
 to be pernicious even in its benefits. The forty- 
 shilling freeholders are among the acknowledged 
 curses of the country — being one of the chief 
 causes of Common Leases, Joint Tenantcy,* and 
 all that endless subdivision of penury, which — to 
 a degree almost to realize the " infinite parva " 
 of the mathematicians — is carried on among us. 
 
 The Catholics themselves, more wise in their 
 wants, suggested, in their application for relief in 
 1792, the expediency of fixing a higher rate of 
 qualification for them than for Protestant elec- 
 tors. But the very same Parliament, that then 
 rejected their whole petition with scorn, in the 
 very next year precipitately granted, in this one 
 mischievous respect, more than they asked for ; 
 and while they still excluded from the Senate 
 the few Catholics that could serve the country, 
 let in upon the hustings the whole mob they had 
 themselves brutalized, to ruin it; — like that 
 judicious emancipator, Don Quixote, when he 
 
 * This evil has been remedied bv a late Bill. 
 
837 
 
 liberated the galley slaves, and found it no easy- 
 matter to defend himself against them after- 
 wards. 
 
 Nor let it be forgotten, in our account of gra- 
 titude with the Government, that this grant of 
 the Elective Franchise to the Catholics would 
 soon have become a matter of necessity, even if 
 panic had not extorted the concession then. 
 Already had the great decrease of the Protest- 
 ant population given warning that a day was 
 not far distant, when, if Catholics were not ad- 
 mitted to this Franchise, the same cause, that 
 now threatens to leave the Protes tant Church 
 without a Laity, would have left the Protestant 
 Parliament without Electors. In vain had the 
 Legislature tried, at different periods, to import 
 Protestant electors from Germany, Geneva, &c. ; 
 and endeavoured even, as we have seen, to pre- 
 vail upon Jews, to come and assist in making 
 Representatives of the People of Ireland. These 
 statesmanlike plans had all failed ; and it would 
 have been found necessary, even for the mere 
 carrying on of the farce of Representation, to 
 drive herds of Catholic serfs into the vote- 
 market at last. 
 
 Q. 
 
The Freedom of Corporations is one of those 
 rights, which the Statute of 1793 restored to the 
 Catholics, but which the spirit of Orangeism 
 frustrates and almost wholly nullifies. The 
 astronomer Ricciolus, in his Map of the Moon, 
 kindly marked out certain portions of land in 
 that planet, as estates for some of his brother 
 astronomers — and about as nominal and unreal 
 as those Lunar properties, are most of the privi- 
 leges acceded by the existing law to the Catho- 
 lics. 
 
 With respect to the Freedom of Corporations, 
 — the long exclusion of Catholics from the exer- 
 cise of this right having, in general, deprived 
 them of the two chief claims to it, Birth and 
 Service, they have no other mode left of acquir- 
 ingtheir freedom but by Special Grant —and this 
 their Protestant masters take special care not to 
 indulge them with. The few Catholic Freemen 
 in the Guilds of Dublin (stated, in 1812, to be 
 not a hundred out of the 2,400 of which those 
 Guilds consist) are excluded by the Corporation 
 at large from the right of voting at elections of 
 Members for the City — so that the Elective Fran- 
 chise in such cases becomes a mere nullity, and 
 
839 
 
 the laws themselves are rendered useless by 
 the Faction which thus sets itself above them. 
 The same evil principle of Orangeism and In- 
 tolerance pervades all the Corporate Towns in Ire- 
 land — which may be reckoned, if I recollect 
 right, at 115 in number — and when to this gene- 
 ral operation of the spirit of the law against its 
 letter, we add the actual enactments which exclude 
 the Catholic from all Corporate Offices * — from 
 any share whatever in those municipal privi- 
 leges and immunities, which, unjust, partial, and 
 exclusive as they are in their nature, become 
 aggravated, in their very worst features, by being 
 thus narrowed to a smaD favoured Sect — we may 
 have some idea of the extent to which the Penal 
 spirit spreads itself through Ireland, and how 
 universally it " comes home to men's business 
 
 * The number of Corporate Offices throughout Ire- 
 land, from which Catholics are excluded by the ex- 
 press words of the law, is calculated to be no less 
 than 3,548 ; and to these, if we add the situations, im- 
 mediately dependant on them, from which Catholics 
 are by consequence equally excluded, it will make 
 a total of near 5,000 Corporate Offices, to which thia 
 Penal interdict extends. 
 
 ft- 2 
 
340 
 
 arid bosoms/' in the most familiar, daiiy, and 
 interesting concerns of their life. 
 
 Imagine one of these towns, where a small 
 Orange oligarchy, combining all the petty 
 jealousies of the Corporation spirit with the arro- 
 gant prejudices of a dominant and long-privi- 
 leged sect, engrosses to itself the sole manage- 
 ment of all municipal affairs — the imposition of 
 various tolls and duties, from which themselves 
 are exempt — the monopoly of trades and arts by 
 the system of legal apprenticeships — the ap- 
 pointment to the numerous lucrative situations, 
 dependant upon the Corporate Offices — in short, 
 all those branches of civic and parochial patro- 
 nage, which go to make the consequence and 
 influence of such small municipal governments. 
 
 What must be the lot of a Catholic farmer, 
 merchant, or tradesman, under the vexatious 
 control of this little knot of bigotted burgesses ? 
 Oppressed by partial levies —by excessive market- 
 tolls — by invidious preferences, which, while 
 they obstruct Catholic industry, encourage and 
 pamper up Protestant insolence — by all that 
 grinding machinery of exaction and injustice, 
 which has been laid open during the late inquiry 
 
Ml 
 
 into the abuses of the Corporation of Limerick — 
 is it wonderful that the victim should hate and 
 curse a system, which thus meets him, at every 
 turning of life, with its odious scowl of exclu- 
 sion ; which, like the branding-iron, inflicts 
 at once both suffering and disgrace, and which 
 insults him by the very confidence with which 
 it presumes on his patience ! — is it wonderful 
 that Captain Rock should count upon a long 
 and successful reign, among a people thus taught 
 to feel that the law is only powerful to oppress ; 
 that the slightest infusion of justice or libe- 
 rality into it paralyses its strength — and that, 
 like Mithridates, from long habit, the only food 
 upon which it thrives is poison. 
 
 If long practice, indeed, in the art of govern- 
 ing wrongly, must necessarily produce an inca- 
 pacity of governing otherwise, our rulers have, 
 at least, this excuse for the continuance of their 
 injustice. " Allez, monsieur'' — says a person- 
 age in the Malade Imaginaire, to an apothecary, 
 whose practice had only lain in the lowest 
 ministry of his profession — " on voit bien que 
 vous n'avez pas ete accoutume de parler a des 
 -yisages;" and, in like manner, the inveterate 
 
342 
 
 Faction, that rules us, has so long communed 
 only with the baser parts of legislation, that 
 they can hardly be expected to know the face of 
 Justice, even when they see it. 
 
 To return to the Act of 1793— Catholics were 
 by this statute made eligible to serve on Grand 
 and Petty Juries :* but, that as little utility as 
 possible might be extracted from the privilege, 
 the office of Sheriff, from which the appoint- 
 ment of' the Juries flows, is still kept exclu- 
 sively in the hands of the Protestants — thus 
 leaving the Catholic's chance of ever appearing 
 on those tribunals, at the mercy of the same 
 " disinheriting countenance," which frowns him 
 out of his rights wherever it encounters him. 
 Accordingly, there are some Counties where no 
 Roman Catholic has ever been on a jury, when 
 a person of his own religion was to be tried "f* — 
 
 . * They were already eligible — but under a re- 
 strictive Statute, enacted in 1708, the mere letter of 
 which was repealed in 1793, while its spirit was 
 still left in full force. 
 
 t Wakefield says, in speaking of Tipperary — 
 " there are some large estates belonging to Catho- 
 lics, and during the Duke of Bedford's administra- 
 
343 
 
 and it was mentioned by an Irish member of 
 high authority, during the last session, that he 
 had heard a leading gentleman of a County 
 " thank God, that, for the space of 100 years, 
 no Catholic had ever sat on the trial, either of 
 Protestant or Catholic, in that jurisdiction." 
 
 It was, indeed, avowed, during the late in- 
 quiry into the conduct of the Sheriff of Dublin, 
 that though, upon some unimportant occasipn^, 
 Catholics are allowed to serve on the Grand Jury, 
 yet, that, wherever their own rights are con- 
 cerned, or their money to be disposed of, they 
 are without ceremony excluded. 
 
 At the mysteries of the Bona Dea in ancient 
 Rome, no male creature was allowed to be pre- 
 sent ; and it seems that the mysteries of Job- 
 
 tion, seven gentlemen of that persuasion were always 
 called on the Grand Jury ; but, when T was there in 
 1808 and 1809, not one was called, the nomination of 
 Sheriflf being entirely an office of party/* Of an- 
 other County he says, ** During the Duke of Bed- 
 ford's administration, three or four Catholics were 
 on the Grand Jury, In 1808 and 1809 none were 
 called ; but I understood, that at the Spring Assizes 
 of 1811, the Sheriflf was favourably disposed towards 
 them." 
 
oing — the " nuUis sacra retecta" of Peculation, 
 — are to be kept equally sacred from the profane 
 eyes of Catholics. To what an extent these 
 select Protestant Grand Juries used to carry their 
 high and peculiar privilege of fleecing the pub- 
 lic,* is well known to the Legislature, which has, 
 at last, interfered to check their enormities — 
 and how interested they were in turning re- 
 ligion to account, by excluding all heterodox 
 sharers of the spoil, may be judged froih a fact, 
 lately stated by Lord Bathurst, that, at a time 
 when the revenue of Ireland amounted alto- 
 gether to but four millions, one million of that 
 sura passed, unaccounted for, through the 
 hands of Grand Juries. 
 
 When Pericles told Alcibiades that he was 
 considering how he should be able to make up 
 his accounts for the public assembly, " rather," 
 said Alcibiades, " consider how you may avoid 
 giving any accounts at all." If Alcibiades had 
 served all his life, upon Irish Grand Juries 
 
 * Mr. Dutton, in his Survey of Clare, mentions, 
 as a fact, that '' a Grand Juror, asked, and was 
 actually paid 30/. for using his influence in procure 
 ing a presentment," 
 
845 
 
 and at Irish Public Boards, he could not have 
 uttered a more golden sentence on the subject 
 of Jobbing than this. 
 
 Permission to enter into the Profession of the 
 Law was another of the privileges accorded in 
 179^ : and, as an opening of fame and emolu- 
 ment to the Catholic — as an opportunity, too, 
 of showing that Nature, at least, is no sectarian, 
 and that talents may be possessed without the 
 intervention of a test-oath — the concession has 
 been attended with no inconsiderable advantage 
 to him. 
 
 But here, as every where else, he is stopped 
 in the propylaeum of the temple. He may 
 raise his voice to ask for justice to his fellow 
 slaves, but from the inner shrine, where it is 
 dispensed, he is utterly excluded. He can 
 neither be Judge, Attorney-general, King's- 
 counsel, Master in Chancery, Recorder, nor any 
 one of a long list of near 200 offices, from all of 
 which the express letter of the Statutes excludes 
 him. In addition to these, there are various other 
 legal situations — such as Commissioners of 
 Bankrupts, Assistant Barristers, &c. between 
 
 g5 
 
346 
 
 which and him, though the laws have left them 
 open,* the Ascendancy throws up its blank 
 barrier — separating him from all the honours 
 and rewards of his profession, and marking 
 him among the condemned of the land, even 
 in the very seat and asylum of justice. 
 
 The consequence is, that the people, against 
 whom the law is arrayed, cannot discover, in 
 looking through its official ranks, one single in- 
 dividual of their own faith, upon whom they 
 can count for a community of feeling, or for a 
 chance of impartiality between them and their 
 accusers.f 
 
 Notwithstanding all this, it is often gravely as - 
 
 * It has been calculated by Mr. Scully, that the 
 number of Law Offices from which the Catholic is 
 excluded, both by express enactments, and the con- 
 sequent operation of these enactments, amounts 
 altogether to about 1,500. 
 
 t " In this country (says Mr. Grattan) there are 
 two codes of laws, one for the Protectant sect, another 
 for the Catholic. The Legislature has a common in- 
 terest with the one, and against the other. The 
 Protestant beggar, therefore, has an advantage over 
 the Catholic proprietor." 
 
34r 
 
 serted, that the question of Emancipation re- 
 gards only the upper ranks of the Catholics, 
 and that to the lower orders it is an object of 
 but little importance or concern !* Go, you, 
 who, entertain this sagacious opinion — go ask 
 the poor Catholic, who sees himself excluded 
 from the Vestry, where a few Protestants vote 
 away his wretched means of subsistence, to, pro- 
 vide for the building and repairs of theur own 
 church — where, though forbidden to have a 
 voice in the election of a Church-warden, he 
 may be capriciously compelled to act as Church- 
 warden himself f — ask the farmer, who is cited 
 to the Bishop^s court by a Reverend tithe- owner, 
 and finds another Eeverend tithe-owner on the 
 
 * Even the acute Author of *' the Past and Pre- 
 sent State of Ireland," asserts that, " expedient as 
 Catholic Emancipation maybe, it is o«/j/ expedient." 
 
 f Thus reversing to the poor man the hardship 
 of his betters, who may elect, but cannot represent. 
 
 The danger of this little system of parochial ty- 
 ranny is evident. Where the office of Church-warden 
 is attended with profit or patronage, the Protestants 
 keep it to themselves ; but where it brings only 
 trouble or expense, the burthen may be thrown upon 
 the CathoHc, 
 
348 
 
 bench to decide between them* — ask the Catho- 
 lic of the North, who, surrounded by armed 
 Orangemen, is left wholly at their mercy by 
 that Penal law, which forbids him to use arms 
 for his self-defence ; -[• who, if found with 
 weapons, may be transported, if found without 
 them, may be murdered — ask the Catholic in- 
 
 * " Is it likely that a Clergyman, who must natu- 
 rally feel a bias to the interests of the Clergy, as 
 opposed to those of the laity, should be an impartial 
 judge f Again, is it likely that a Tithe-owner, who 
 holds Tithes in the very Diocese, should be a d'lsin- 
 erested judge ? And lastly, is it likely, that an hum- 
 ble Ecclesiastic depending altogether for preferment 
 in the Church, on the absolute will of his Bishop, 
 who might (as he well knows) be prejudiced against 
 him by the Clergy, were he to venture to check 
 their exactions, should be an independent judge /*" — 
 Report of the Committee of the parish of Black- 
 rath. 
 
 t ** Protestant servants and tenants (says Mr. Wake- 
 field) are arrogant, and consider themselves a supe- 
 rior order of men ; which, in some degree, arises 
 from their being allowed the use of arms — a privi- 
 lege denied to the Catholics. This exclusion, as it 
 points out to them their own weakness, draws them, 
 like animals in a storm, closer together." 
 
349 
 
 habitants of towns and cities, whom the spirit 
 of Corporation Ascendancy haunts through all 
 the details of life ; who are sacrificed at every 
 step to the immunities of others, and kept, as 
 game, for a few privileged persons to torment — 
 ask any and all of these, why they are thus 
 persecuted, and, when they answer you with 
 that proverb, which sorrow has engraven on 
 their very hearts, " there is no law in Ireland 
 for a Catholic,'" — if you s<z7/ think Emancipation 
 unnecessary, go, vote with Mr. Peel — appeal 
 to God and the Constitution with Lord Eldon — 
 talk guard-room politics with the Duke of Wel- 
 lington— rave of Jesuits with Sir Thomas Leth- 
 bridge — write mad pamphlets with Sir Har- 
 
 Duringtlie reign of the Penal Code, Mr. O'Connor 
 tells us, tlie "Roman Catholic gentlemen evaded pro- 
 secution by registering their arms in the name of 
 their Protestant servants, whom the law recognized 
 as freemen, though it stamped their masters as 
 slaves. Thus the Catholic gentry contrived means 
 of defence against midnight assassination, and of 
 redress against upstart insolence." — See, in Scully'i 
 Penal Laws, a statement of the extent to which this 
 infringement on the Rights of Self-Defence still 
 exists. 
 
350 
 
 court Lees — drink deep to the Glorious Memory 
 with Sir Abraham Bradley King* — in short, do 
 every thing that is most absurd, frantic, and 
 mischievous — Captain Rock will take you to 
 his bosom as a true and devoted friend, and 
 enrol you along with the illustrious person- 
 ages just mentioned, as one of the best and 
 most useful consolidators of his power. 
 
 * I have not done justice here to one-half of the 
 ** Dii Majores" of Orangeism ; and must therefore, 
 to supply the deficiences, refer to a list of *' Loyal 
 Public Characters/* given in a book called " the 
 Williamite," as the standing Toasts of all Orange 
 Lodges. Mr. Peel, who has naturally a spirit 
 " touch'd to finer purposes/' will there see witli 
 what luminaries his No-Popery politics constellate 
 him. 
 
S51 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 1798—1800. 
 
 The Captain's views of his own interest — the Govern- 
 ment acts up to them — Rebellion of l79S—the Peo- 
 ple provoked into it — T7ie Union — Secular Odes of 
 Ireland — Conclusion. 
 
 I HAVE already, in a preceding Chapter, ac- 
 knowledged, that the lucid interval of Lord Fitz- 
 william's administration alarmed me. At that 
 moment, could I have introduced myself, as a 
 sort of political Mephistopheles, into the confi- 
 dence of Mr. Pitt, I would have said to him, 
 " Great minister ! this will never do — it is con- 
 trary to the whole natural course of rule in Ire- 
 land. Here is Lord Fitzwilliam, not only 
 about to deprive of their birth-right that select 
 knot of Protestant gentlemen, who have derived 
 from their ancestors,, the privilege of misgovern- 
 ing Ireland— but even forming a plan to intro- 
 duce, in place of their monopoly, a system of 
 
852 
 
 law, moderation, and equal rights. Never was 
 such a thing heard of since the days of Brian 
 Borumhe ! 
 
 " Still worse — there is, at this moment, a 
 conspiracy organizing ; and such a one as a 
 Government with any taste for phlebotomy 
 would rejoice at. It is, as yet, confined to the 
 Protestants and Presbyterians of the North ; 
 but the Catholics, if left in their present state 
 of discontent, or, at all events, if goaded ac- 
 cording to the old established method, will 
 inevitably join it. Yet, so lost are the exam- 
 ples of history upon Lord Fitzwilliam and Mr. 
 Grattan, that — instead of availing themselves, 
 as they ought, of such a glorious opportunity 
 for confusion — they are actually, while I address 
 you, meditating a measure, which will content 
 the Catholics, disconcert the United Irishmen, 
 squeeze the black drop (as the angel did with 
 Mahomet) out of the heart of the Protestant 
 Ascendancy— and, in short, make eleven twelfths 
 of the people happy and peaceable, to the utter 
 extinction of the tyranny and mischief of the 
 remaining handful ! 
 
 *< This, I repeat it, will never do — shades of 
 
353 
 
 Sir William Parsons and Primate Boulter 
 forbid it ! You must recal Lord Fitzwilliam — 
 restore the Ascendancy to that power, which it 
 knows so well how to abuse — send us over a 
 Governor, not too wise, who will let Lord Clare 
 and the Beresfords be viceroys over him — give 
 full loose to the loyalty of the Orangemen, 
 those hereditary scourges of the country* — let 
 
 * These wishes and plans of the Captain were all 
 realized. " The Orangemen, in J 796," says a Pro- 
 testant writer, well acquainted with those times, 
 *' commenced a persecution of the blackest dye. 
 They would no longer permit a Catholic to exist in 
 the County (Armagh). They posted up on the 
 cabins of those unfortunate victims this pithy notice, 
 ' to Hell or Connaught,' and appointed a limited 
 time, in which the necessary removals of persons 
 and property were to be made. If after the expira- 
 tion of that period, the notice had not been entirely 
 complied with, the Orangemen assembled, destroyed 
 their furniture, burnt the habitations, and forced 
 the ruined family to fly elsewhere for shelter. In 
 this way upwards of 700 Catholic families in one 
 County were forced to abandon their farms, 
 their dwellings, and their properties, without any 
 process of law, and even without any alleged crime, 
 except their religious belief be one,'* 
 
354 
 
 them again yell in the ears of the Catholics the 
 old Cromwell cry of, ' to Hell or Connaught/ 
 and, lest any fear of the laws should damp their 
 generous ardour, let Indemnity shine out in the 
 distance, as their beacon through desolation and 
 blood — confine not the exercise of tyranny to 
 the Government, but delegate it throughout the 
 whole privileged class ; and multiply the scor- 
 pions on your whip, till you leave no single part 
 of the victim unreached by them — '^ do this, and 
 Cato will be Csesar's friend' — do this, and, de- 
 pend upon it, the results will be such, as eveii 
 the ' wisdom of our ancestors' would not have 
 blushed to acknowledge. 
 
 '• In the first place, by your adoption of this 
 system, we shall none of us be disappointed of 
 our rebellion — neither the Faction of the Rocks, 
 
 Out of this aggression, naturally rose that asso- 
 ciation of the lower orders, called. Defenders ; and 
 while these were hanged without mercy wherever 
 they appeared, the Orangemen, on the contrary 
 (says Mr. Grattan) '' met with impunity, and suc- 
 cess, and triumph. They triumphed over the lavv^— 
 they triumphed over the magistrates, and they tri- 
 umphed over the people/' 
 
S55 
 
 whom centuries of defeat have not discouraged, 
 nor the Faction of the Ascendancy, whom cen- 
 turies of triumph have not satisfied. In the 
 next place, by lashing up the lowest of the po- 
 pulace,* into a fury as blind as that of the 
 Cyclops in his cave, but only the more ferocious 
 for being unenlightened, you will throw the 
 tarnish of bigotry over the banner of Freedom, 
 and bring disgrace for ever upon the cause of 
 the people in Ireland. In the third place, by the 
 opportunity of abundant blood-letting, which 
 the popular inflammation you have provoked 
 will furnish, you will be enabled to cool down 
 the temperament of the country, into a state 
 tame enough for the reception of a Union-|-— and 
 
 * So little was this intention concealed in 1797, 
 that an English fencible regiment actually issued a 
 sort of manifesto to the Catholics of Ireland, calling 
 them " infamous and dastardly,'* and challenging 
 them to stand forth — adding that, *^ they did not 
 come into this country to be trifled with." 
 
 f In a communication from the English Cabi- 
 net to Lord Fitzwilliam at the time, this design was 
 pretty clearly intimated. The postponement (it was 
 there said) of the intended concessions to the Ca- 
 tholics, '* would be not merely an expediency or a 
 
356 
 
 finally, by that Act, will deliver up Ireland, 
 bound hand and foot, into the fangs of Captain 
 Rock and the Ascendancy, to be their joint 
 prey through all succeeding times." 
 
 Such was the advice, dictated by the truest 
 spirit of Rockism, and founded on a familiar 
 acquaintance with the wisdom of other times, 
 which I would, at that moment, have given 
 worlds to whisper into the ear of the British 
 minister. But I soon found it unnecessary — a 
 Mephistopheles was not wanting. Mr. Beres- 
 
 thing to be desired for the present, but the means 
 of doing a greater good to the British empire than 
 it had been capable of receiving since the Revolu- 
 tion, or at least since the Union " Lord Fitzwilliam, 
 too, in his answer, appears to have fully understood 
 the stimulating system that was about to be pursued 
 as he refused ** to be the person to raise a flame, 
 which nothing but the force of arms could keep 
 down." — Letters to Lord Carlisle. 
 
 Compare these circumstances with the delay of 
 the promised Graces under Charles, and observe 
 how closely the parallel is preserved throughout. 
 It was said of Ovid ** Non ignoravit vitia sua, sed 
 amavit," and a similar love for their own iniquities 
 is observable through every page of the history of 
 Dur rulers. 
 
357 
 
 ford, on the first alarm of the intended inroad 
 upon monopoly, had hastened over to London, 
 and pleaded the cause of the Ascendancy and 
 injustice with such success, that all idea of dis- 
 turbing their ancient reign was abandoned. 
 No sooner had the Minister obtained the enor- 
 mous grant of one million seven hundred thou- 
 sand pounds, which, on the faith of the pro- 
 mised measures was patiently acquiesced in, 
 than those measures were withdrawn — Lord 
 Fitzwilliam recalled*^ — and the system which I 
 had set my heart upon instantly put into 
 
 • Mr. Duquerry, who had opposed Lord Fitz- 
 william's administration on the subject of the war, 
 yet strongly felt and deprecated the dangerous con- 
 sequences of his recal; and severely animadverted 
 upon the conduct of Mr. Pitt, who, " not satisfied," 
 he said, " with having involved the empire in a dis- 
 astrous war, intended to complete the mischief by 
 risking the internal peace of Ireland — making the 
 friends of the country the dupes of his fraud and arti- 
 fice, in order to swindle the nation out of 1,700,000/. 
 to support the war, on the faith of measures which he 
 intended should he refused." 
 
358 
 
 practice, with a vigour of execution* which 
 surpassed my most sanguine expectations. 
 
 I have already had occasion, in remarking 
 upon some extracts from a Journal, kept by one 
 of my ancestors in the great Rebellion of 1641, 
 to compare briefly the events of that period 
 with those of 1798, and to show the family re- 
 semblance that existed between the two Rebel- 
 lions. Both born in the perfidy of the govern- 
 ment, and both nurtured into strength by its 
 cruelties, they each ran the same career of blood, 
 and each, in expiring, left its unburied corpse, to 
 
 * The scene that followed is thus forcibly and 
 truly described in a publication of that time. " Co- 
 ercion and terror became the order of the day. The 
 astonished citizen beheld laws of death daily issuing 
 from that seat of leg-islation, where a few weeks be- 
 fore, he had fondly hoped to see the peace-offering 
 of a united people received with gratitude by an ho- 
 noured government. The lash, the prison and the 
 rope were rapid, yet too slow in their devastation ; 
 foreign troops poured in from every quarter, and 
 military superseded civil law. But law of any kind, 
 even military law was thought too merciful ; &c. &c. 
 
poison the two parties that still sullenly con- 
 tended over it. 
 
 As the policy of our rulers was so like at both 
 periods, so the persons, selected to carry it into 
 effect, were equally well suited to the mission 
 intrusted to them ; and the names of Coote, 
 St. Leger, Tichborne, &c. in 1641, may find 
 pendants among our military heroes of 1798 — 
 too recent, perhaps, to be hung up in the Gal- 
 lery of History, but quite as worthy of the 
 cause in which their zeal was signalised. 
 
 There was, however, in the choice of in- 
 struments at this latter period, one egregious 
 mistake committed by the Government. The 
 bravery, good sense, and humanity of sir 
 Ralph Abercromby were all misplaced in that 
 wretched warfare, where the soldier was sent to 
 make, not to meet enemies, and the lash and the 
 picket went before, to 'cater for the bayonet.* 
 
 * The following is by no means an overcharged 
 statement of some of the means by which the rebel- 
 lion was ripened. " If industrious peasants are to 
 be, at the beck of any spy, informer, or perjured 
 approver, dragged from their habitations, and the 
 embraces of their wives and children, parents or re- 
 
360 
 
 Accordingly, during the short time of this gal- 
 lant soldier's command, his moderation and 
 good feeling stood considerably in the way of his 
 employers. When sent into Kildare to quell an 
 insurrection, he found all quiet- — and under- 
 stood his orders so little as to leave all quiet as 
 he found it. The army, too, which, before he 
 took the command, was cheered along in its 
 course of devastation both by Church and State, 
 
 latives, at the dead hour of the night, and handed 
 and shot at their own thresholds, without the sem- 
 blance of trial, or time to implore the mercy of 
 heaven in their last moments :— if the cottage of the 
 husbandman is, upon similar grounds, to be con- 
 signed to conflagration, and its miserable inhabitants 
 shot or stabbed for endeavouring to escape from the 
 flames :— if the peaceable Catholics of a whole dis- 
 trict, nay, of whole counties, are to be banished from 
 their country, their little property and means of 
 livelihood, by the edict of a paid, protected, and ne- 
 farious banditti called Orangemen, and their house? 
 burned about their ears for non-compliance, &c.*' 
 
 When some of these outrages were stated by Lord 
 Moira in the English House of Lords, a Noble Mi- 
 nister, in denying the truth of the statement, said 
 that " the people would resist and resent, if it was 
 90." The people took the hint. 
 
361 
 
 and could hardly burn, shoot, stab and violate 
 fast enough for its patrons and admirers, was by 
 him branded with a public and indignant re- 
 buke for its licentiousness, and pronounced to 
 be " in a state which made it formidable to 
 every one but the enemy." 
 
 Such honesty was, of course, out of harmony 
 with the existing system, and Sir Ralph Aber- 
 cromby found it necessary to resign — well re- 
 paid for the loss by his own heart's approval 
 ever after, and by that blessing which conse- 
 crates the memory of the few, who have, in Ire- 
 land, stood between the oppressor and the op- 
 pressed. 
 
 With respect to the atrocities committed by 
 some members of my Family, during the parox- 
 ysm of that re-action which the measures of the 
 Government had provoked, it is far from my in- 
 tention to enter into any defence of them. I 
 will merely say, that they who, after having read 
 the preceding pages, can still wonder at such 
 events as even the massacre of Scullabogue,* 
 
 * Even this, too, may be traced to the panic which 
 the severities of the Government had diffused. ** Some 
 run-away rebels,'' says Mr. Gordon, '* declaring that 
 
 & 
 
have yet to learn that simple theory of the con- 
 nexion of effects with their causes, which is the 
 sovereign cure for wonder on all such occasions. 
 
 We now come to the consummation — to the 
 harvest reaped from all this blood. Forfeitures 
 were, as we have seen, the price paid by Ire- 
 land for her former rebellions — and the for- 
 feiture of her existence as a nation was the 
 mulct imposed upon her for this. 
 
 So proud was Mr. Pitt of his achievement of 
 the Union, that he regarded it as a matter of 
 triumph to begin the century with it. Alas 
 for the Muse of Ireland ! Her Secular Odes 
 have thus always been dirges of slavery and 
 sorrow. The Seventeenth Century opened with 
 the perfidy of James, who first flattered the 
 hopes of the Catholics, and then persecuted and 
 
 the royal army in Ross were shooting all the priso- 
 ners, and butchering the Catholics who had fallen 
 into their hands, feigned an order from Harvey (the 
 rebel leader) for the execution of those persons at 
 ScuUabogue. This order, which Harvey, himself a 
 Protestant and a man of humanity, was utterly in- 
 capable of giving. Murphy is said to have resisted — 
 but his resistance was in vain." 
 
363 
 
 plundered them afterwards — the birth of the 
 Eighteenth was signalized by the violation of the 
 Article, of Limerick— and the Union, a measure 
 rising out of corruption and blood, and clothed 
 in promises put on only to betray, was the 
 phantom by which the dawn of the Nineteenth 
 was welcomed. 
 
 The proclamation of the Herald in the Secu- 
 lar Games of the ancients, was — " Come ye unto 
 sports which no mortal hath ever seen nor ever 
 shall see."" But to us the revolution of ages 
 brings no such novelty, and the words of our 
 Herald, Time, should be — " Come ye unto the 
 misery and the slavery which your fathers en- 
 dured before you, and which it is the will and 
 the wisdom of the Legislature that your children 
 should suffer after you !'*'' 
 
 I clearly foresaw the advantages that a Union 
 would bring to my Family ; nor was I singular 
 in this view of the consequences of that measure. 
 Mr. Saurin (the late Attorney General) in a 
 Speech delivered on the 21st of February, 1800, 
 in the Irish House of Commons, thus strongly 
 foretold the great accession of strength, which 
 would ensue from a Union to the Rock interest : 
 
 R 2 
 
364 
 
 " Is it by such a project and such a measure 
 that we believe Ireland can be tranquillized, or 
 her distractions and dissensions removed ? No, 
 Sir ; — is it not, on the contrary, adding to and 
 augmenting her divisions and distractions, by a 
 new sort of division and distraction, which will 
 last, in all human probability, for another cen- 
 tury, with rancour and fury P" Mr Foster, too, 
 (now Lord Oriel) was equally clear-sighted in 
 prophesying the consequences that have since 
 resulted from the measure — declaring that a 
 Union would have no other effect than that of 
 turning Ireland into " a discontented province^ 
 
 Aware, however, as I was of all this— and 
 fondly as my fancy already revelled in the clear 
 field of combat, which the removal of the Parlia- 
 ment would leave to me and the Ascendancy, 
 yet could I not help shuddering, from a sort of 
 Irish instinct, at the act of national degrada- 
 tion that was now about to be exhibited to the 
 world. 
 
 When I saw the boon of Emancipation held 
 temptingly to the lips of the Catholic, like that 
 dear-bought draught at Cleopatra's banquet, 
 with the pearl of his country's Independence 
 
365 
 
 dissolved within it — scarcely could I help joining 
 the few voices that exclaimed, " What! will you 
 surrender your country for a shadow ? Will 
 you trust to those, who have deceived you so 
 often, and cease to be Irishmen, in the vain hope 
 of becoming freemen ? 
 
 " The bargain of our parliamentary Judases 
 is, at least, intelligible and tangible, and the 
 " thirty pieces of silver " on the palm acquits 
 them of being romantic m their treason. But, 
 what have you in exchange for this surrender of 
 national existence ? The verbal pledge of a mi- 
 nister — the fairy money of Hope, which seems 
 gold to the eye, but will turn into dust in the 
 hand ! 
 
 " Be assured that a Union will put Eman- 
 cipation farther off than ever. ' Once merged 
 in the Empire (say your deceivers), your num- 
 bers will be no longer formidable, and you 
 may with safety be admitted into the Con- 
 stitution,'* Once merged in the Empire, 
 
 * Mr. Grattan thus states this argument of the 
 Minister ; — " For this hope he exhibits no other 
 ground than the physical inanity of the Catholic 
 body, accomplished by a Union, which, as it de- 
 
see 
 
 (say I) your numbers will, indeed, cease to be 
 formidable — but, therefore, you will no longer 
 be of importance, and, therefore, you will not 
 be emancipated. It was only from the fears 
 and interests of a resident Legislature, acted 
 upon at every point by the pressure of your in- 
 creasing population, that the few immunities 
 you now enjoy could ever have been extorted — 
 and had the Union been achieved, as was con- 
 templated, in 1785, it would have been then, 
 as it will be now, an estoppel to your enfran- 
 chisement for ever !" 
 
 In ray younger and romantic days, I might, 
 perhaps, have been generous enough, to waste 
 (for it would have been no more) a few such 
 warnings on the Catholics. But— even had I 
 been so singularly disinterested as to sacrifice 
 my own advantage to that of my country — the 
 current had then set too strongly in my favour 
 
 stroys the relative importance of Ireland, so it de- 
 stroys the relative proportion of its Catholic inhabi- 
 tants, and thus they become admissible, becanse 
 they cease to be anything^. Hence, according to 
 Mm, their brilliant expectation. " You were," says 
 he, " before the Union as four to one — you will be 
 by the Union as one to four." 
 
367 
 
 to be resisted, and the projects of the Govern- 
 ment for my aggrandizement would, as usual, 
 have succeeded in spite of me. 
 
 The shame of Corruption, like the blessing of 
 Mercy, falls alike on " him who gives, and him 
 who takes," — and at the period of the Union this 
 reciprocity of disgrace was perfect. The Pro- 
 testant Parliament was purchased with solid 
 bribes — the Catholic People were won over with 
 deceitful promises, and the Minister, glorying 
 in his triumph over both — 
 
 *' Gave Liberty the last, the fatal shock, 
 
 " SlippM the slave's collar on, and snapped the lock." 
 
 Here ends the Manuscript of the Captain. 
 He had prepared, as he told me, materials for 
 the continuation of his Narrative, from the Union 
 down to the present day ; but the great press 
 of political business which that measure brought 
 upon him, left him but little leisure for the 
 indulgence of literary pursuits. 
 
 As the Law and the Captain are always 
 correlative in their movements, the state of the 
 
368 
 
 one during any given period will always enable 
 us to judge of the activity of the other. It 
 has been said, that " you may trace Ireland 
 through the Statute-book of England, as a 
 wounded man in a crowd is tracked by his blood*" 
 — and the footsteps of the Captain are traceable, 
 in like manner, through the laws that have pre- 
 vailed during the last four-and- twenty years. 
 For instance : — 
 
 The Insurrection Act, in force from 1 800 to 
 1802. 
 
 Martial Law, in force from 1S03 to 1805. 
 
 The Insurrection Act, in force from 1807 to 
 1810. 
 
 Ditto, from 1814 to 1818. 
 
 Ditto, from 1822 to 1824.'^ 
 
 * *' In addition to these Acts (says sir Henry Par- 
 nell, in the excellent Speech from which this state- 
 ment is taken), others of a similar unconstitutional 
 kind have been passed within the same period. The 
 Habeas Corpus Act was suspended from 1797 to 
 1802 3 again from 1803 to 1806 ; and again in 1822. 
 The Arms Act, allowing domiciliary visits, and pro- 
 hibiting the use of arms, was in force from 1796 to 
 1801, and has been in force from 1807 to the pre- 
 sent time, and now forms part of the standing law 
 
369 
 
 Well knowing how much the time of the 
 Captain must be taken up, by the increased de- 
 mands upon his activity which such a state of 
 the law implies, I forbore to press him for the 
 remainder of his Manuscript ; choosing rather— 
 though anxious to give the public the full ad- 
 vantage of his lucubrations — to wait till some 
 interval of retirement from business, should en- 
 able him, like Napoleon at St. Helena, to put a 
 finishing hand to his Memoirs. 
 
 Such an opportunity is now but too likely to 
 be afforded, by an event that occurred about two 
 months since. 
 
 One evening, during the mild weather which 
 prevailed at that time, the Captain, who is ra- 
 ther of a romantic disposition, was, it seems, in- 
 
 of the country. The Peace Preservation Act, by 
 which a regular gendarmerie was appointed, has 
 been in force from 1814 to the present time." 
 
 *' Taking together," he adds, *' the periods of dis- 
 turbances, as before mentioned, with the periods for 
 which the Martial Law and Insurrection Acts have 
 been in force, ^ve shall find that out of a period of 
 the last thirty-one years, no less than twenty-six 
 have been years of insurrection or disturbance."— 
 Speech, delivered Tuesday, June 24, J 823. 
 
370 
 
 dulgirig himself with a walk by moonlight on 
 the banks of the river Suir — meditating, 
 no doubt, on the events of his long life, and 
 sighing after that peace which he might have 
 enjoyed, had the measures of the Government 
 not forced him into such riotous distinction. 
 From this reverie he was awakened by the 
 tramp of horses, and saw rapidly advancing to- 
 wards him a party of that gendarmerie, to 
 whom, at present, is confided the task of civilising 
 Ireland. 
 
 Supposing that they knew him, and that 
 his final hour was come, he, with his usual 
 promptitude, prepared for resistance — hav- 
 ing long resolved (as he himself expresses it), 
 " on the principle of the Sibyl, to sell the last 
 leaf dearly." Perceiving, however, that they 
 were not aware of the rank of their antago- 
 nist, and holding it to be the part of a wise man 
 to reserve himself for future chances, he quietly 
 submitted, and was conducted to the gaol of 
 Tipperary. 
 
 A Sessions under the Insurrection act being 
 always ready in that town, he was tried the fol- 
 lowing day, and the crimes with which he was 
 
371 
 
 charged, were — Firstly, being out in the open 
 air by moonlight, and Secondly, not being 
 able to give an account of himself. Of the 
 unfairness of the latter charge, the Public, 
 after having read the preceding pages, can 
 sufficiently judge — though the case, it must be 
 owned, is somewhat diflPerent, when the auto- 
 biographer stands before a magistrate under 
 the Insurrection Act. 
 
 It appears that there were, in the Court and 
 the Town, at the time, a large assemblage of 
 RocKiTEs — any one of whom could have iden- 
 tified our hero, so as to give the going Judges 
 the triumph of, at last, hanging the real 
 Captain Rock. But the only virtue, 
 which the Irish Government has been the 
 means of producing in the people, is fidelity 
 to each other in their Conspiracies against 
 it. Accordingly, the Captain — though 
 shrewdly suspected of being the Captain — was, 
 luckily for himself, not known to be such ; and, 
 being found guilty only of the transportable 
 offence, namely, that of being out by moon- 
 light, is at this moment on his way to those 
 distant shores, where so many lads " who love 
 the moon " have preceded him. 
 
372 
 
 As every thing that relates to such great 
 men is, in these times, a matter of public in- 
 terest, I am happy to have it in my power, 
 from the report of an eye-witness, to state that 
 the Captain was dressed, on the morning of 
 his embarkation, in an old green coat — supposed 
 to be the same, but without the yellow facings, 
 which was made up for Napper Tandy, as an 
 officer of the Irish National Guard — a pair of 
 breeches, the colour of which the reporter un- 
 luckily could not ascertain, and stockings, of 
 the staple manufacture of Mr. Dick Martin's 
 Kingdom of Connemara. 
 
 He was observed to smile as he mounted the 
 side of the vessel, and trod the deck, I am as- 
 sured, with a very firm step. The state of his 
 mind, however, may best be judged, by the 
 following Extract of a Letter which I received 
 from him, about a week before he sailed. 
 
 " Cove Harbour, 1824. 
 
 # * # * * 
 
 * *^ * # * 
 
 " It is amusing enough that this should be 
 my fate, after all ; though to you, J know, it 
 will afford matter of serious thought. When, 
 
373 
 
 after turning over the first pages of the history 
 of our connexion with England, you reflect 
 that now— at the end of six hundred years — 
 an Irishman may be transported, under Eng- 
 lish laws, for being out of his house (having 
 none, perhaps,) after sunset, it will confirm you, 
 I think, still more in the idea impressed upon 
 you while here — that, much as we, of the Rock 
 race, require instruction, our rulers, of every 
 race, require it still more. 
 
 " For myself, I am grown old in the service 
 — repose has, at length, become welcome, if not 
 essential, to me; and, when all that a man 
 wishes is, to be able to say, ' inveni Portum,' 
 Port Jackson, perhaps, will do as well as any 
 other. 
 
 *' For the safety of the Rock Dominion in 
 Ireland, to which my son, now invested with 
 the title of Captain, succeeds, I see but little 
 in the measures or projects of our present 
 rulers to alarm me. On the contrary, it ap- 
 pears to me, that I leave every thing most com- 
 fortably calculated, to render the reign of my 
 son as tempestuous and troublesome as my 
 own. 
 
374 
 
 <« A Lord Lieutenant, whose enlightened and 
 liberal intentions alarm and oflPend the stronger 
 party ; while his limited powers and embarrassed 
 position incapacitate him from gaining the con- 
 fidence of the weaker — a Secretary, worthy of 
 the good old Anti-popery times, and to whose 
 spirit I would ensure a safe passage over 
 Mahomet's bridge into Paradise, if narrow- 
 ness (as it is probable) be a qualification for 
 the performance of that hair-breadth promenade 
 — the Orange Ascendancy flourishing under the 
 very eyes of the Government, and imitating 
 that Oligarchy mentioned by Aristotle, whose 
 oath was, ' We will do the multitude all the 
 evil in our power' — the Established Clergy still 
 furthei enriched, and threatening to ' push ' 
 the Landed Gentry ' from their stools ' — more 
 than a million spent annually upon soldiers,* to 
 
 * "This enormous sum (1,334,96//. 6*. lOif/.) 
 forms only a part of the contributions of Great 
 Britain, to uphold that system of mis-government, 
 to which all the miseries of Ireland, and the desti- 
 tute condition of her population should be traced. 
 The other expences, direct and indirect, would cer- 
 tainly increase the annual charge (1823) to two mil- 
 lions sterling, at least. Let the British Senator, 
 
375 
 
 keep down the Catholics, and only a few thou- 
 sands per annum given to educate them— with 
 such actual results of the policy of our present 
 rulers, and with Mr. Peel, Lord Eldon, and 
 the Duke of Wellington in the Cabinet, to 
 answer for the complexion of their future mea- 
 sures, I may safely, I think, reckon upon the 
 continuance of the Rock Dynasty, through 
 many a long year of distraction and tumult ; 
 and may lay my head upon my pillow at 
 Botany Bay, with the full assurance that all 
 at home is going on as prosperously as ever. 
 
 " A word or two more, my dear Sir, and I 
 have done. As I know you are one of those 
 who have sincerely set their hearts, upon the 
 conversion of the Irish Roman Catholics to 
 Protestantism, I will — to show you how little I 
 am under the influence of bigotry — mention the 
 only mode that has ever occurred to me, as 
 affording even a chance of attaining that object. 
 Let an Act be passed, transferring to the Roman 
 
 therefore, reflect that the condition of Ireland is no 
 longer an Irish question alone, but one most ma- 
 terially affecting the financial concerns of Great 
 Britain." — Practical Hints and Suggestions, ^c. 8fc. 
 
376 
 
 Catholic Clergy all the Tithes that are at pre- 
 sent paid to the Protestant Establishment ; 
 and, if that does not alienate the whole body of 
 Roman Catholics from their Pastors, the case 
 is desperate, and you must be content to let 
 Ireland remain Popish. 
 
 " Yours, my dear Sir, very truly, 
 
 '' DECIMUS ROCK, 
 
 " Late Captain of all Ireland''' 
 
 " P. S. I trust to your discretion and honour 
 for not mentioning the circumstances of my fate, 
 till you know that I am fairly out of the hands 
 of the Joshuaites — having hanged so many 
 dozens of wrong Captain Rocks, they might 
 possibly now take it into their heads to hang 
 the right one/' 
 
 THE END. 
 
 T. C. Hansard, Pater-noster-row Press. 
 
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